Falling Hope, Rising Threat
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: -Seq. to 'Man Like No Other'- When strange objects fall from the sky, Katniss must lead the Avengers in a new challenge as they discover further secrets of the pre-Panem world...
1. Peace in Her Time

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: This is a sequel to my story 'A Man Like No Other', which I recommend you read before this one. For this story, I'll be incorporating a third crossover element that you may recognise, but you'll find out what that is in the next couple of chapters; I hope you find the results interesting

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

It had been a few months since the death of President Snow, and I still wasn't sure if I would ever get used to the thrill of acting as an Avenger.

It wasn't that I enjoyed hurting people, but I appreciated the satisfaction of knowing that my actions ensured that nobody would have to endure the fear of a Reaping or the trauma of the Games ever again. I still had to kill sometimes, but at least when I was fighting as an Avenger I knew that I was killing people who wanted to bring back the old world, rather than children who were just as trapped by the system as I was. I even enjoyed having allies that I _knew_ wouldn't have to stab me in the back later on if I didn't get them first, as all of the Avengers went into action knowing that we could trust each other.

Of course, the best part of my role was the relative freedom I enjoyed; after our victory over the Maestro, few people had questioned that the Avengers had earned their title of 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' all over again, which made the select few who might have resented our authority very uncomfortable with trying to take it away from us. While Alma Coin had never been entirely satisfied with our overall approach, and Thor's erratic role in the team had earned him her particular attention given her lack of knowledge about where he came from and the fact that he often had to leave to deal with matters on Asgard, her thoughts on the matter were no longer our concern. Ever since the first elections of the new Panem had resulted in Commander Paylor of District 8 being elected president of the new Panem rather than Coin, she didn't have any real power over us, and her attempts to argue that we were a potential threat had only jeopardised her position further, and she was current fuming in isolation in District Thirteen.

After the command structure of the new Panem government had been set up, it hadn't taken long for Steve to help us establish our new role. Once it had been decided that we would be subject to certain limitations when it came to government work so long as we had complete freedom to take action when dealing with confirmed threats, the new rulers had agreed that we would only be called upon in cases where there was a clear and present danger that conventional Peacekeeper forces would be unable to handle, or situations where we had a clear target with minimal risk of innocent life; Steve had made it clear that the Avengers were not to be used to fight standard wars between other countries.

The most obvious priority of the team had been the need to take out any of Snow's remaining followers who might have tried to grab power for themselves, but even without anyone on our team with power similar to the Hulk, and with Thor only an intermittent ally due to his own duties on Asgard, we'd quickly worked out how best to make an impact when we had to go into action.

Despite our lack of power, what I liked to think of as the four 'core' members of my Avengers team were making a fair impression even when going into action without Thor. With the original Avengers having helped us destroy most of Panem's major military assets, all that was left were some isolated pockets of resistance favouring the restoration of the old Capitol that were becoming even harder to track down as time went on, which we all hoped meant that anyone still in favour of that idea was either dead or resigned to giving up the whole idea.

Aside from our developing combat experience, we were also working on improving our other areas of expertise. While I still deferred to Steve's experience when he had a point to make, in general I was acknowledged as the field leader of the Avengers when we went into action, with Steve simply serving as a tactical advisor and administrator to ensure that we maintained our relationship with Panem's government. I still felt somewhat strange about having even Thor defer to my orders in a fight, but he had accepted my authority in Earth-related matters and otherwise left the issue alone.

Of the other three Avengers, Peeta in particular had developed his mechanical skills so that he could carry out any repairs that the Iron Man armour might require without needing aid from Beete, and Johanna and Finnick had become experts in the use of their new weapons and Johanna's new arm, adapting to compensate for their new assets while also using their existing talents. Peeta still wasn't comfortable making any serious changes to the Iron Man armour in case he damaged it in some way, but he was fairly sure that he could put it back together if anything happened in the field. In keeping with his title of 'the Mariner', Finnick had modified his costume to include an aquatic mask in case he ever needed to go swimming or enter a potentially toxic environment, and he, Johanna and I had upgraded our original costumes to increase their ability to absorb attacks, even if I'd kept my armour comparatively lighter due to the additional protection offered by my shield.

As far as team development went, the only thing that I wasn't comfortable about was a decision that Steve had made without consulting me. After a couple of close calls where Finnick had needed urgent medical attention after a raid, Steve had nominated that Prim join the team as our new field medic, reasoning that we could all trust her and she had received enough training from our mother to treat most injuries long enough to keep any injured alive long enough to get them to more equipped facilities. She was under instructions to remain in the hovercraft unless I gave her an explicit order to come and assist us, but she'd been given full stealth training by Gale and similar experts in that field.

I would have been uncertain about the idea of Prim joining the team on principle, but the fact that Steve had given her the codename of 'Black Widow' just made me more uncomfortable. Steve had assured me that he wasn't interested in teaching her how to fight in favour of focusing on improving her stealth skills and any other field training he could offer, but as much as I'd admired Natasha when we'd worked together, the thought of Prim becoming like her…

Right now, however, all had been quiet for the last couple of weeks, and despite the fact that I was technically unemployed until the next crisis arose, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I'd spent so much time feeling comparatively useless after I'd won the Seventy-Fourth Games and found myself no longer needing to _do_ anything to survive, but even if there was nothing that actively demanded my attention as an Avenger right now, I could still spend time training with the others and on my own and feel like I was genuinely accomplishing something rather than just going through old motions.

It helped that my new house felt far more like something _I_ would choose, as opposed to the overly decorated style of my family home in the Victor's Village. Since Finnick, Johanna and I were all well-known as Avengers, my mother and Annie had been relocated to a secure facility some distance outside most of the Districts, the area giving us freedom to train and plan for anything that might come up while also allowing our families to do their own work. Annie had taken to transcribing some of the stories Steve had kept in his archives from before the first major war so that they could be shared with the other Districts now that we'd abandoned the old Capitol propaganda, while my mother was using some of his old records to study more advanced medical techniques so that she could act as a doctor rather than just a healer.

At the moment, with Peeta visiting his family back in the rebuilt District Twelve- since Iron Man had a full-body suit, it was easier for Peeta to hide his identity- and Johanna and Finnick attending a briefing at the Council to help Steve report on our latest developments while Prim had lessons with my mother, I was enjoying the rare opportunity for a decent rest in my room, with no need to worry about training or missions for the next couple of days…

The sudden ring of my video phone interrupted my thoughts. For a moment, as I got up from my couch, I was tempted to ignore it in favour of my hard-earned peace, but when I saw the familiar 'A' logo on the screen, I swiftly realised that I couldn't do that; only one person called with that as their icon, and he wouldn't call me on a hard-earned day off for no reason.

"Steve?" I said, looking at the vid-screen in surprise as I turned it on and saw my mentor; it took a great deal to unnerve the man who had once been known as Captain America, but he was clearly at least somewhat uncomfortable about something. "What's up?"

" _I've just been alerted by Stark's automated stellar scanning network that something is falling from the sky_ ," Steve explained grimly.

" _Something_?" I repeated, looking at him uncertainly once I remembered that he was referring to a system of satellites that Tony Stark had once created to warn Earth about potential attacks after the Battle of New York; something striking Earth from space sounded like a problem, to be sure, but I didn't see how it was a problem that merited a call like this. "Like… a meteor?"

" _Not exactly_ ," Steve replied. " _Whatever this is… well, my access to the tracking systems have been very erratic ever since the Maestro began to set up Panem, so I can't be certain_ what _it is, but I can confirm that we're talking about something very big that doesn't_ quite _seem to be a natural phenomenon_ …"

"Not natural?" I repeated uncertainly.

" _All I can say for sure is that we've had a few similar impacts in the past couple of months_ ," Steve explained. " _The first couple were fairly small and contained on the east coast, so I never saw the need to bring them up, and the third one fragmented significantly even before it hit the ground, but in this case… well, I'm not an expert on anything relating to space, but even I know that you don't get this many large meteors on this kind of short notice. They're coming in at a rate that can't be controlled, so I don't think we're dealing with a new Chitauri assault or anything like that, but I can be sure that whatever's happening up there, it's not a natural meteor shower that we just missed seeing earlier_."

"Right…" I said, nodding thoughtfully as I shrugged on my jacket and grabbed my assembled weaponry. From what I recalled of the map Steve had once shown me of Panem, most of the country was concentrated in the centre and the west coast of what had been America in Steve's time, so anything hitting the east coast wouldn't have immediately raised any red flags as there wasn't meant to be anything in that area. "So what do you think?"

" _I think that anything unusual from space merits the attention of the Avengers_ ," Steve said grimly. " _Like I said, there seem to be several fragments coming down, so I've tracked one of them to an apparent destination close to District Three; based on projections, it seems to be the most likely to come down in one piece close to our area. At least one other will land fairly safely on the east coast, and nothing's going to touch down in a manner that could endanger innocent lives, but I think it's best we focus on the nearest target before we take action on a larger scale. I've sent a message to Thor and Peeta with the appropriate coordinates, and Johanna and Finnick will be coming by to pick you up before you all head out there yourselves_."

"Do we go in to talk, or go in firing?" I asked, already mentally counting my available arrows.

"Talk, but be ready to fire, which is why I think you and Peeta should go first; you're the ones best-qualified to defend yourselves without hurting the other side if it's just a misunderstanding," Steve explained. "Be careful, Katniss; things falling from the sky can be… problematic."

I nodded in understanding before I terminated the video-phone and ran to collect Prim; if this 'object' that had inspired such concern from Steve wasn't a natural phenomenon, having a trained medic available couldn't hurt.

I just hoped that he was right and this wasn't going to turn out to be some kind of alien invasion or whatever the term was; we might be finding our way as a team, but we weren't ready for something that big yet…


	2. The Coming of the Ark

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

"Damn…" Johanna said, voicing the thoughts of everyone in the hovercraft as we drew closer to our destination. "That is _big_."

She might be the most direct of us, but this was one case where Johanna had certainly come up with the perfect description of the situation facing us. My fellow surviving Victors had been all too willing to participate in the investigation into the crash once Steve had called them, and even Prim had been keen to come along once I asked for her assistance, even if I couldn't guarantee that she'd have anything to do when we got there.

According to available maps, the object had crashed down near an old factory in District Three, but as we drew in closer to our destination I realised that the maps hadn't measured the distance quite correctly; the falling object had actually landed _on_ the factory, instead of just landing near it. Fortunately, it was one of the facilities that had been closed down during the initial rebellion and hadn't been re-opened yet, so at least we didn't have to worry about the risk of civilian casualties, but searching the object itself would still left us with a lot of work.

Looking at the object as it came into clearer view, I wasn't sure if I should be impressed or disappointed. Far from the meteor or alien ship I'd been partly expecting and partly dreading I might find, it seemed to consist four large thick circles around a thinner interior rod with a small pod on one end, metal decayed and blackened in a manner that went far beyond what I'd expect from something entering Earth's atmosphere. Large chunks of metal were lying scattered around it beyond what had been spread out from the destruction of the factory, and the circles themselves seemed to have various holes in them as though they'd been cracked by the impact, but in general Earth's new 'visitor' seemed to have arrived reasonably intact.

Looking at the shattered construct that could have only been a ship of some kind, I suddenly found myself regretting Thor's current absence; I knew that he had responsibilities as king of Asgard, and this didn't look like anything in it would be a serious threat, but when I'd only ever faced human adversaries so far, it was only natural for me to wish that the team's powerhouse was available for something this unusual…

"Anything?" I asked, glancing over at Peeta from his position beside the pilot's seat. The hovercraft's sensors were fairly good at just detecting life-signs if we wanted to know if there was anyone alive in the area, but the Iron Man suit's sensors were better-equipped to give us a more detailed reading once we got up-close to our targets.

"A few human life-signs…" Peeta noted as he stared over the shattered shape in front of us, before he looked grimly at me. "And… a few fading heat-signatures."

"People are dying?" Prim asked, looking anxiously at Peeta.

"People are _dead_ ," Johanna corrected grimly as she adjusted her grip on her axe. "Any sign any of the others are in that kinda state?"

"No," Peeta said after a moment's pause as he raised one hand to the side of his helmet; there weren't any actual physical controls there, but it seemed to make Peeta feel better if his hands were doing something when his helmet gave him information. "As far as the suit can tell, everyone still alive in there is battered, but they'll recover."

"And everything's human?" Finnick asked. "None of those… Chitake things Captain Rogers told us about?"

"They were called the Chitauri," I corrected the self-titled Mariner.

"And they're not here," Peeta confirmed. "No sign of anything in there that wasn't human, and the suit isn't alerting me to any trace of alien technology; whatever this thing is, it was made on Earth."

"OK," I said, nodding in thought for a moment before voicing my decision. "Peeta, once we land, you're with me; we need to find the survivors and get them out as fast as possible. Johanna, see what you can do about clearing away this debris; we might be able to use it for something in the future. Finnick, help Prim set up an emergency triage centre here; we're probably going to be dealing with serious injuries if we do find any survivors, so we need to be able to treat the worst of the injuries here."

It was a credit to how we'd developed as a team that nobody questioned my division of labour. On the surface, it might have made more sense to have Peeta and Johanna switch roles, given the physical strength of the Iron Man armour, but the armour's sensors would be better equipped at finding survivors inside the debris, while Johanna's axe and metal arm would make it easier for her to clear things up from outside.

"Coming in for landing," Finnick said as he manoeuvred the hovercraft into position near the crash-site, setting it down on the ground as he quickly checked the ship's sensors. "OK, environmental checks confirm no radiation in the area or anything toxic in the atmosphere. It looks like the ship came down cleanly enough, no sign of any hostile activity in the area… shall we see what's going on here?"

"Agreed," I said, standing up to look over at Peeta. "Let's go."

Nodding in agreement, Peeta reached over to take hold of the shield strapped to my back and flew out of the opening hovercraft door, quickly moving into position above the crashed object.

"Where to?" Peeta asked, glancing down at me as I dangled from his left hand.

"There," I said at last, indicating a particularly large hole on the end of a circle. Peeta dived forward for a few moments before landing inside the circle, revealing that we were on the edge of a circular corridor that extended further into the structure.

"Right," I said, checking that my bow and arrows were still secure on my back before I indicated the corridor ahead of us. "Let's go."

As we started walking- Peeta moving at a slower pace due to the weight of the armour and the need to avoid putting too much strain on the damaged ship- I appreciated the casual camaraderie that had developed between Peeta and I by this time. He had confirmed that he still had feelings for me more than once, but he had also accepted my own decision that this wasn't the best time to pursue any kind of relationship on top of our current responsibilities as Avengers.

I was coming to recognise the value of Peeta's optimism and compassion as opposed to Gale's earlier desires to just kill anyone working for the Capitol, but I still wasn't ready to fully explore what I could have with him when I was still trying to adjust to my role as leader of the new Avengers. For the moment, my priorities were to make sure that the nation we had rebuilt didn't fall back into old habits simply because it was convenient, and I just didn't have the time for anything else…

After a few minutes of walking through the shattered satellite, navigating carefully up ladders and walking along corridors leading further into the satellite, while trying not to think too much about some of the bleeding piles of debris I saw down some of the corridors, the two of us finally found a survivor down a side corridor. She was an Asian-looking woman with shoulder-length dark hair dressed in a dark leather outfit that reminded me slightly of what I wore in the Seventy-Fourth Games, one leg trapped under a metal bar that had fallen from the roof but otherwise in fairly good condition.

"There," Peeta said, indicating the woman at the same time as I saw her. "She's-"

"I see her," I said, hurrying over to the woman as Peeta followed behind me at a more gradual pace.

"It's OK; we'll get you out of here," I said, crouching down beside the woman to look reassuringly at her. "I'm Mockingjay, and this is my colleague, Ir-"

"I… Iron Man?" the woman interrupted, looking at Peeta in shock as he walked up behind me.

"You've heard of th- me?" Peeta corrected himself, as he lifted the bar off her leg and tossed it to the side.

"I… well, we read all about the Avengers in our histories of Earth…" the woman said, wincing as she tried to move her leg before I reached down to pick her up. "But… I mean, they all died… the Avengers failed…"

"The Avengers _fell_ ," I corrected, looking firmly at the other woman; I might have only known them for a brief time, but I was satisfied that the Avengers had done everything they could to save Earth before Bruce went insane. "As far as I'm concerned, the only reason they _didn't_ save the world before is because they were weakened while they were alone; as a team, they couldn't be stopped."

"Believe me, you do _not_ want to insult the Avengers in her presence," Peeta said, sounding like he was grinning under the mask as he stared around before he nodded back at me. "Nobody else in this section; I'll check out some of the other areas while you get her out of here."

Nodding in agreement, I began to lead our new patient back down the ladders that would take us out of the crashed ship, leaving Peeta to proceed further into the structure.

"Why was this area so empty?" I asked, looking curiously at our new patient once we'd reached the bottom of the ladders.

"I was… hiding," the woman explained, looking slightly sheepish as she looked at me. "There was some… political tension back on the Ark; I thought it was best if I stayed… underground… for a while… and I ended up here."

"Ah," I said, nodding in understanding even as I privately rolled my eyes at this news; evidently, even people from space couldn't escape political strife. "So, what's your name?"

"I'm… Callie Cartwig," the woman said, before she looked at me with new curiosity. "How did you… I mean, _Iron Man_ … I mean, it's been _centuries_ …"

"Which is why we felt it was time to get back into action," I said, smiling warmly at the other woman. "How we found that armour is a long and complicated story; we can worry about that later."

"Of… of course," Callie said, looking uncertain for a moment before her face softened in understanding. "Right… that's just someone else _in_ Tony Stark's armour, right?"

"Some of us took the original Avengers as our inspiration, and others just worked with what they already had to come up with new ideas," I explained, reminding myself to keep smiling as we walked; considering what had happened to her, showing this woman a friendly face had to help.

"Like you?" Callie asked.

"Like me," I confirmed. "Like I said, I'm Mockingjay; I'm the leader of the Avengers… and right now I have some questions for you."

"Such as?" Callie asked, looking at me with new curiosity.

"What actually _happened_ here?" I asked, indicating the shattered construction around us. "I mean, this was obviously some kind of satellite, but you're the third major planetfall incident we've experienced in the last few months; where did you all come from?"

"We had to… fragment the Ark," Callie explained, leaning on my shoulder as we continued towards the daylight; judging by the way she was wincing as we walked, she'd sustained some damage to her leg from that bar. "Only way… to get down…"

"The Ark?" I repeated curiously. "You mentioned that before; what's that?"

"It… _was_ a space station," Callie explained, smiling slightly as I looked at her in confusion. "Almost a century ago, when the wars became serious… twelve space stations came together with thousands of satellites… and put themselves together to create the Ark."

"Really?" I said, impressed despite my limited knowledge of space travel. Even since I'd become an Avenger, I'd spent too much time focusing on Panem's problems and my own training to think about what might be up in space, but the scenario that Callie described _was_ fairly impressive…

"So… the Ark crashed?" I asked, indicating the debris around us as we approached the hole that Peeta and I had used to enter the building originally. "What happened?"

"Our life support systems were running out," Callie explained, her expression grim. "We had to find out if Earth was survivable…"

"You should probably leave it at that," I said, as we finally reached the hole and I drew my bow once again. "Considering what I've heard so far, I think it would be easier if you told this story to my whole team once we've picked up the rest of the survivors."

"Of… of course," Callie said, as I fired a grappling arrow at a protruding chunk of metal above us, leaving a long cable dangling from below it that we could use to return to the ground.

"Come on," I said, indicating the cable to Callie with a smile before I pointed out the hovercraft a short walk away. "Once you reach the ground, just head over there and you'll meet more of my team; Black Widow will give you a check-over and Mariner can fill you in on some of the essentials of events down here before the rest of us get back."

Callie seemed a bit surprised at these instructions, but she nodded in acceptance as she began to climb down the cable, leaving me to turn back into the remnants of the Ark to search for whatever other survivors might be left.

From what Callie had told me, it didn't sound like the Ark was going to be a threat, but I had a feeling that its arrival was going to make things a bit more complicated for us than they had been so far…

* * *

AN: For those who don't recognise it, Callie, the Ark, and all related characters come from the series 'The 100', set in a post-apocalyptic world where a nuclear holocaust decimated Earth, forcing a large group of survivors to band together by combining twelve satellite bases into a single station known as 'the Ark'. The full history of the series so far will be disclosed to the Avengers in the next chapter- at which point I will change this story's secondary crossover to '100' as opposed to 'Avengers'- but for the moment, if you want to do some research, for the purposes of this story, all of Season One of 'The 100' happened as it did in the show, and things will start to diverge from early in Season Two onwards.

AN 2: On a geographical note, as previously mentioned, all prior impacts to Earth occurred on the east coast of America, which is in keeping with the events of 'The 100', where the original dropship landed around Mount Weather; one episode even featured a glimpse of the statue of Abraham Lincoln. As the Maestro ignored the east coast after he destroyed New York and Washington, he never knew that there had been any survivors in that area and so they've been allowed to develop at their own pace outside of the influence of Panem.


	3. Life in Orbit

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

After an hour or so spent searching the crashed fragment of the Ark, all five of us were satisfied that we had retrieved the only survivors of the crash. We had discovered quite a few bodies near the damaged components of the Ark, but Peeta's initial assessment that there were only a few survivors had been correct.

The few survivors we'd discovered had been near the centre of the structure, which at least explained how they had survived the crash, but none of them had been in any condition to answer our questions about what had happened, most of them suffering from broken limbs and varying stages of shock. Once Peeta and I had taken them back to the hovercraft, Prim had sedated most of them to give her time to conduct a more thorough examination, confirming that they had all suffered from various concussions as well as assorted broken bones in the impact. Based on the location where we'd found Callie compared to the other casualties, I guessed that she had been lucky enough to be near to the centre of the satellite, and had subsequently been cushioned from the worst of the damage by virtually everything else around her.

After the rest of us had returned from conducting our assessment of the satellite, Prim and Finnick had carried out a few tests on our patients and confirmed that everyone we'd rescued would recover eventually. However, they would need at least a couple of weeks in a medical facility to get back to full health, leaving us with Callie as our best source for answers about what we were dealing with. If the hovercraft's communication system had allowed it, I would have tried to arrange for Steve to participate in this conference, but radios just seemed too impersonal and we didn't have a videophone installed yet, so I had decided to get some answers now and relay the situation to my mentor in person later. Having sent a brief message to Steve to explain what we'd discovered, along with assurances that I'd give him the full story when we rendezvoused at the Avengers compound, I set the hovercraft's autopilot to take us home before I turned around to look at Callie with the rest of my team.

"Right," I said, looking at the older woman while trying to present myself as in control of the situation; this might be the first time in almost two years that I was talking with someone who didn't know who I was and what I'd done, but I had introduced myself as an Avenger to someone who knew what _that_ meant, and I was going to live up to those responsibilities. "We're on our way back to base, and the rest of your crew have been given what treatment we can provide right now; any chance you could fill us in on where you all actually _came_ from?"

"OK," Callie said, looking around at the five of us, paying particular attention to Peeta now that he'd removed his helmet, before she smiled and laughed softly. "I'm sorry, it's just… I grew up reading stories about the original Avengers and thinking that Earth had been uninhabitable for almost a hundred years, and now…"

"Almost a hundred?" Johanna repeated, looking sceptically between Callie and me. "I thought the old guy said everything fell apart over _two_ hundred years ago?"

"He said that the _Avengers_ fell over two centuries ago, Bloodaxe," I corrected her. "We can't forget that it wasn't as simple as one big conflict that shattered what civilisation existed before and Panem rose from whatever was left over all at once; we're doing our best, but there hasn't exactly been enough historical material available for anyone to be sure what happened between then and now."

"Fair point," Finnick nodded.

"So… you're thinking that the war that was originally triggered by Snow started off the events that devastated what came before, and then there were various other conflicts that led to… us?" Peeta asked.

"Pretty much," I agreed, before I turned back to look at Callie. "Sorry about that, Miss Cartig; as you probably guessed, our history books have a few gaps we're still trying to fill in…"

"Don't worry about it; it's… fascinating," Callie said, smiling slightly at me before she adopted a more curious expression. "If you don't mind me asking… who's the 'old guy'?"

"The historian and tactical consultant of District Thirteen," I replied simply; Steve's history was his own secret to share, and I wasn't going to tell it before he was here to fill in the details himself. "You'll meet him later; in the meantime, please continue your story."

"Well," Callie explained, looking awkwardly around the room as she spoke, "the exact details of our history aren't entirely clear even now- a lot of people argue that some of the public stories were just edited to make them more 'kid-friendly'- but the end result is that, some time after the start of the last major war over a century ago, twelve major satellites in orbit around Earth were able to come together as a single vast space station in order to increase our chances of long-term survival. We were able to form a government and some kind of society and culture despite our limitations, and over the next few decades, we made… well, an existence up in space."

"You survived that long in space?" Prim said, looking at Callie in awe. "Wow…"

"Tell me about it; you people deserve points for not just going nuts for being stuck together for that long," Johanna mused with a slight smile.

"Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple," Callie explained, her expression becoming grimmer as she continued. "In the last few years, limited resources on the Ark have required us to… well, we've adopted more stringent measures of population control. Under our rules, families were only allowed to have one child at a time, and any breach of regulations resulted in those who broke the rules being… well, they were floated."

"Floated?" Prim repeated.

"We put them in the airlocks and… and then we opened the doors," Callie said.

The five of us could only stare at that statement.

"And that was for _everything_?" Prim asked, looking at Callie in shock. "If someone just… I don't know, took some food because they were so hungry-"

"No exceptions," Callie said firmly. "As I said, our resources were limited-"

"So you basically put all your criminals out into space for even minor infractions," Peeta said, staring grimly at the woman we'd just met.

"Only when they were over eighteen; children who broke the law were given a chance to appeal when they-" Callie began.

"And how many people actually got let off?" Johanna asked, glaring at the woman. "How do you justify that crap-?"

"Our life support systems were running out."

The simplicity of that statement was all that we needed to be sure that Callie wasn't lying to us.

"And by life support…" I began, taking a moment to be sure that I remembered everything Steve had told me about the conditions up in space. "You mean… the Ark was losing the ability to provide oxygen?"

"Exactly," Callie said grimly. "Jake Griffin, our chief engineer and the husband of a member of our ruling council, confirmed that the Ark's life support systems were starting to fail a few months ago, but at the time the discovery was covered up as it was believed that it would incite riots and mass panic when we didn't have any viable solution to the problem. He was floated before he could reveal that information to the general population, but the council knew that it was only a matter of time until we ran out; even our best estimates showed that it would take more oxygen than we had left to repair the system to the extent that it could continue to sustain us."

"A real catch-22, huh?" Finnick smiled.

"What?" Prim asked.

"It's a phrase from one of the old guy's books," Finnick explained, smiling at my sister. "It's meant to describe a situation where there's literally no way to get out of something; the example given was that a soldier couldn't avoid participating in a suicide mission by claiming that he was insane as only a crazy person would do something like that, and he couldn't get out of it by claiming to be stable as the leaders had a duty to send a stable mind into that kind of situation."

"Ah," Prim said.

"Not a bad analogy, anyway," Johanna noted before she looked back at Callie. "So you needed more oxygen to repair the system, but you couldn't get that oxygen in time; what did you do?"

"We took around a hundred juvenile prisoners from the detention centre and sent them all down to Earth in a small dropship," Callie said.

I blinked.

"Excuse me?" I said, voicing the thoughts of my fellow Avengers as I looked at Callie. "I thought you said that you believed Earth was _uninhabitable_?"

"We didn't have a choice," Callie said defensively. "With our limited resources, those children were probably going to die anyway once the time came to re-evaluate their sentence; at least this way we could give them a chance at life and increase our own oxygen reserves at the same time."

I decided not to respond to that comment. Personally, however they had justified it to themselves, it sounded to me like the Ark had just decided to kill two birds with one stone by getting rid of a group of children they'd practically judged and sentenced already, but getting into an argument wouldn't help us learn what had happened more recently.

"So… I'm guessing that the original dropship with those delinquents was the first impact we detected, a few months back, correct?" I asked, looking curiously at Callie.

"Probably," Callie confirmed. "A friend of mine sent down a mechanic in a small pod a few weeks later to help the kids establish radio contact with the Ark, but… well, they weren't in time to stop us culling over three hundred people from the remaining population."

"'Culling'?" Johanna, Finnick and Prim said simultaneously, Prim clearly horrified at the statement while my fellow Victors were glaring at Callie.

"You just killed three _hundred_ people-?" Johanna began.

"They volunteered," Callie interjected, her tone grim as she looked around at us. "We were strapped for options and honestly thought that Earth wasn't survivable, so we posted an announcement about the situation so that people could make a choice about whether they would sacrifice themselves or not… it just took slightly too long for the children to get in touch with us in time."

"Bad equipment, huh?" Peeta said, shrugging to try and lighten the awkward mood when faced with Callie's evident grief at the memory.

"To say the least," Callie said solemnly, before she continued. "As it turned out, there was a native tribe living in the area where the dropship had landed; the kids had taken to calling this tribe 'Grounders', and had already had a couple of close calls with them before we made contact. Doctor Griffin was able to offer some advice on treating some injuries that they'd sustained in their earlier encounters, but when we were planning how to get down…"

"Problems arose?" Finnick asked, looking grimly at our new acquaintance.

"To say the least," Callie said grimly. "To cut a long story short, Diana Sydney, one of the councillors, had spent some time representing herself as a voice of our 'working class' so that she and her followers could take control of our remaining dropships, leaving the rest of us to die-"

"How many could you have saved?" I interrupted.

"All our dropships together could only save around a quarter of the remaining population of the Ark," Callie clarified grimly, before she sighed in frustration. "And the damn coup didn't even work; Sydney's forces got control of the dropship, but it wasn't properly disconnected from the Ark before it was launched, and as a result, not only did it crash-land, but the Ark's remaining power supply took serious damage."

"Let me guess," Johanna said grimly. "You lost every last dropship and life support was now _completely_ screwed?"

"That's almost being generous," Callie acknowledged. "We were down to around half the population we'd had when we sent down the first dropship, but with all our resources exhausted and life support on its last dregs of power… the only way down now was to use the Ark itself and hope we'd survive."

"How?" Peeta asked, the nurtured engineer in him curious about the science of Callie's story despite our knowledge of the personal costs.

"Chancellor Thelonius Jaha realised that it could be possible for us to land by using the Ark itself as a dropship," Callie explained. "As I said, the Ark was originally composed of twelve different satellites that came together to increase our chances of survival; Chancellor Jaha concluded that we could reactivate the old thrusters and push the Ark back into Earth's atmosphere while we used the various satellites to land once again."

"Bit of a risky manoeuvre, surely?" Finnick asked. "I mean, I doubt those things were _designed_ to land…"

"We knew when we started the procedure that only a few of us would actually make it to the ground," Callie said grimly. "Hell, I was already fairly sure that my allocated section was one of the ones that would just crash and burn… but I had to stay hidden for various reasons."

"You were hiding?" Finnick asked. "Why?"

"I was a close friend of Doctor Abigail Griffin, Jake Griffin's wife," Callie explained. "After her daughter was one of the children sent to the ground in the initial dropship, we realised that some of the council were more interested in keeping humanity alive even if it meant having to sacrifice hundreds of _people_ without giving them a choice, so… well, the man I was involved with at the time was one of the main proponents of that plan…"

"So you thought it was best to drop out and work out what to do in private," I said, looking thoughtfully at our new acquaintance for a moment before I shrugged. "Well, I've tried to do that myself once or twice; we all make poor decisions sometimes."

Callie nodded at me in grateful understanding, before she sighed and looked around the hovercraft at the rest of us.

"Well, that's my story," she said. "We spent almost a century in space trying to survive and prepare for our return to Earth, but it cost us most of our people just to make sure that _anyone_ managed to get down, and we started a war with the first people we met…"

"Talking of that war… seriously, how could we not have known about _any_ of this?" Peeta asked, looking at the rest of the team in shock. "I mean, we've been active for _months_ … and all this was going on just a short distance from us?"

"We never looked at the east coast," Johanna said, her tone bitter as she looked over at the armoured Avenger. "We've been too busy rebuilding Panem for the last few months, and Snow probably figured it wasn't worth looking around here because he was certain everyone was dead…"

"It would fit," I noted, nodding in acknowledgement of Johanna's assessment. "Steve told me once that the east coast was the location of two of the most major cities in America when the wars began; Snow would have made it his priority to bomb an area like that, or at least make sure that they were destroyed, before he made his own move."

"Snow?" Callie asked.

"The adversary that brought us together," I clarified, looking back at her with a grim stare. "He was a superhuman psychopath who thought he had the right to take control of the planet because of what had been done to him in the past, and had spent most of the last century posing as a discreet ruling family; once we learned the truth, we managed to destroy him in our debut battle."

"Ah," Callie said, before she looked at me more curiously. "You haven't been a team that long?"

"We're good, but we've only been in action for a few months," Peeta said, looking solemnly at Callie. "If you'd like, I can fill you in on what's been happening on Earth from _our_ perspective?"

As Callie nodded in agreement, I turned back to the hovercraft controls while Peeta walked over to a corner of the room to explain Earth's history to Callie.

I wasn't worried that he'd reveal anything he shouldn't to her- Peeta might have been the last of the 'field team' to be recruited, but I knew that Peeta understood the value of the Avengers better than Finnick or Johanna- but I had to wonder how Callie would react to our own perspective on what Earth had become since the creation of the Ark…

AN: To those fans of 'The 100', hope you didn't mind the info-dump, and I can assure you that we will be returning to some of the more familiar characters in the next chapter or two if all goes according to plan…


	4. Planning the Search

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: Apologies in advance to Gale fans, but I just don't feel comfortable with the thought of him becoming an Avenger given his attitude in 'Mockingjay', so I included a certain scene in this chapter as a means of addressing that issue

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Telling Callie about the events that had taken place in Panem over the last few decades had simultaneously been easier and harder than it had been to tell the story to the Avengers. In some ways, it had been easier to tell the Avengers what had happened to the world when I first met them as the only thing I'd known about them at the time had been Steve's second-hand stories, whereas I had a clearer idea of what challenges Callie and her people had overcome and felt as though we'd let them down by allowing the Games to happen after we'd risen from the ashes of what came before.

On the other hand, when dealing with someone who'd lived most of her life thinking that Earth had been almost completely destroyed by humanity, Callie seemed to be more focused on being impressed by what we'd accomplished rather than criticising what we hadn't managed to achieve. She had been fascinated to learn about some of the discoveries and technological developments we'd made over the years, along with the essential details of our confrontation with the Maestro (I'd made the choice to omit the fact that he was originally Bruce Banner and the fact that we'd had the aid of the original Avengers; I didn't want to reveal that time travel was possible in case people started making awkward demands). While Peeta and I told Callie our own story, Johanna and Prim transmitted a brief summary of Callie's own background to Steve while Finnick took the controls; the autopilot was good for getting around, but the ship needed a live hand at the controls to make real progress.

"This is your base?" Callie said, looking around the Avengers compound with a smile as we finally reached our destination, Finnick giving her a good view as he brought us in for landing. "It's a… well…"

"You can say it; it's basic," Johanna said, flexing her mechanical arm as she stood up to stare at our compound. The whole facility mainly consisted of a few buildings that Steve had compared to something called 'pre-fabricated housing', which were basically walls set up to act as easy-to-assemble houses, but all had been reinforced to cope with the training we'd be carrying out inside the buildings, along with one particularly secure building where Peeta kept and worked on the Iron Man armour when he wasn't using it. Our residences were all a short distance away from the main compound, hidden in the forest around us; we'd wanted to give our homes a chance to escape if anyone ever decided to attack us where we lived, as well as allowing Annie and my mother to work in private as the Avengers trained.

"Well, compared to the stories I've heard of Avengers Tower, I think there are a lot of things that could be considered 'basic'," Callie smiled, before she looked more thoughtfully at me. "So you destroyed a ruthless dictator… and then you retreated all the way out here?"

"We came here for privacy and security," Finnick corrected, setting the automatic landing sequence as he turned to face her directly. "Like the original team, we have no interest in taking charge of anything; we're just here to help the world get back on its feet so that they have a chance to build something better, so we need to have somewhere to go when people aren't making demands of us or when we aren't needed to kick ass."

"Of course," Callie said, before frowning as she looked back at me. "How do you… _know_ about the original Avengers, anyway? I mean, if this President Snow was such a powerful man, I can't see someone like that letting the stories about them survive this long…"

"He did his best," I said, glancing briefly out of the window as we reached the ground. "But we had a few allies he wasn't expecting, like this man right here."

Callie was about to ask who I was referring to when the hovercraft touched down and Finnick opened the door, leaving us free to file out of the ship as Steve walked up towards us, a pair of black gloves hiding his artificial hand.

"Good to see you all," he said, nodding in approval as he took in the team. "I've read Bloodaxe and Widow's report; you should be proud of what you've accomplished out there."

"We do our best," Johanna said, grinning as she tossed a half-mocking, half-serious salute in Steve's direction. "How's tricks at this end anyway?"

"Destined to get interesting soon, I have no doubt," Steve replied, his expression grim as he looked at Johanna before walking up to Callie with a more casual smile. "Miss Cartig, I'm Steve Rogers; it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Uh… pleasure to meet- _Rogers_?" Callie said, yanking her hand away as she stared at the old man in shock. "As in… but you can't… he'd be… you're not-"

"Captain America?" I finished for her, smiling at her new acquaintance in understanding. "Believe me, I was as shocked to learn his age as you were, but he's telling the truth."

"It's a combination of the super-soldier serum, various artificial organs, and another long period in suspended animation while a friend tried to save my life," Steve explained, shrugging slightly as Callie looked at him in shock. "As you probably guessed, I was the one to bring this little group together when I felt that the time was right for the Avengers to return to the world, but Mockingjay here serves as the field commander; I'm… not exactly qualified to be out in the field any more."

"Right…" Callie said, looking at Steve in stunned silence before she looked back at me. "He's the… ally you just mentioned, right?"

"One of them, but the only one that really matters right now," I confirmed. "Steve convinced a few other people to let us come together as a group, but after Snow was dealt with, most people are pretty much content to leave us alone so long as we keep helping out."

"It's mostly just clean-up at this point, but hey; whatever stops them starting up the Hunger Games again, right?" Johanna put in, smiling as she looked at her axe.

"Right…" Callie said, looking slightly apprehensively at the District Seven winner's weapon before looking at Steve. "So… what can I do for you?"

"Well, the team sent me a brief summary of your story on their way here, so I'm aware of the essential points of your history as you've revealed to us so far," Steve said, looking at Callie in a firm but reassuring manner; only my long experience with him over the past few months allowed me to notice the slight tension in his shoulders that hinted at his disapproval of what the Ark had done in the name of survival. "Based on the reports your station received from the children on the ground, what did they have to tell you about these… Grounders… in terms of their weapons capabilities?"

"The general impression was that they're… well, a bit primitive, to be blunt," Callie explained. "We never heard reports that they had anything more advanced than swords, bows and arrows, but their main advantage lay in their sheer weight of numbers compared to the children, as well as their obviously greater experience at living here."

"OK, so we're just dealing with big numbers rather than big guns; I can work with that," Johanna said, swinging her axe as she grinned at the thought of the upcoming challenge. "That should be interesting…"

"We're not going to attack anyone until we've tried to find a diplomatic solution," Steve said firmly. "Believe me, Bloodaxe, I understand wanting to make sure nobody picks up where Snow left off, but so far nothing we've heard suggests that there's anything more going on with these 'Grounders' than isolated locals reacting to a perceived attack on their territory, so there might be a way to solve this that _doesn't_ involve killing everyone in that area who didn't come from the Ark."

With his point made, Steve stared firmly at Johanna for a moment before he turned back to talk to Callie. "From what you've told us, I'm guessing that you obviously had minimal control over where anything actually landed, but I suppose you have at least some idea where the children would be?"

"Well… we were trying to set them down near an old military base," Callie said, after a moment's pause for thought. "Like I said, we didn't know _what_ Earth would be like, so we'd hoped that if they could reach Mount Weather, they could use the supplies they found there to support themselves…"

"Mount Weather?" Steve repeated, looking at Callie curiously. "You were trying to send them to the old base at Mount Weather?"

"Yes," Callie nodded, surprised at the sudden increased intensity in Steve's stare when he'd heard the name.

"Is that a problem?" Finnick asked, noting the slight tension in our mentor's manners.

"I'm not sure," Steve said, shaking his head uncertainly. "It _sounds_ familiar… I think Fury mentioned he was keeping something there once…"

He paused in thought for a moment before he shook his head. "Sorry; it's gone."

"Gone?" Prim asked.

"I mean that I can't remember why it was important, or if it ever was," Steve explained, looking apologetically over at my sister. "It's been a long life, after all; I can't be expected to remember everything."

"Any ideas?" I asked curiously.

"Apart from the fact that we need to do more research before I make a decision, nothing yet," Steve answered, before he turned to address the rest of us. "All right, we know what we're dealing with, and we know approximately where they were going; even if the children didn't make it to Mount Weather itself, we have to assume that they landed in the area."

"Exactly," Callie said, looking urgently at him. "We need to get going-"

"Not just yet," Steve said, looking apologetically at the other woman. "I appreciate your concern for your people, but these computers weren't built with detailed maps of that area, and the old networks have sustained too much damage over the years for me to just call up a map like that. Not only do we need to move the rest of your people to our medical facilities, but I'll need some time to access the satellite records of where the Ark fragments fell and then re-calculate Mount Weather's location; Beetee can help me with that, and he should be on his way soon enough."

"You called him already?" Peeta asked, looking at Steve in surprise.

"It's nothing to do with doubting your skills, Peeta; it's just easier to cut to the chase and get in our most experienced computer expert for something this complex," Steve said, looking reassuringly at Peeta before he turned to address the rest of us. "In the meantime, you five need to go over what we have so far and both prepare to deal with any potential problems while determining what to do about the rest of the Ark fragments; until further notice, the Ark is our priority."

"Hold on a moment; you're going to decide what to 'do' about us?" Callie asked, looking sharply at Steve. "We came here for _help_ -"

"And I'm not going to turn your people away, but I'm equally not going to just leave the future to chance," Steve explained. "As I'm sure Katniss has explained to you, we've been through a period of great social upheaval in the last few months, so if we're going to have a new wave of people suddenly arriving here, I'd like to make sure that nobody's going to do anything stupid, which means we need to find them as soon as possible."

"Exactly," Finnick said, looking reassuringly at Callie. "Trust me, we'd like to bring in some new faces to this mess too; we just need to make sure everything's under control."

Even if I didn't like having to treat refugees as a potential problem, I had to acknowledge my wider responsibilities as an Avenger; we just didn't have the resources to cope with a new wave of people and a new conflict if there was going to be any trouble…

* * *

As I walked into my room later that day, I had to admit that we were doing well. A quick visit to the infirmary confirmed that my mother was keeping an eye on the Ark residents and our new patients were all recovering well enough, and after today's training session, I felt fairly confident in thinking that, whatever else we were these days, the Avengers _were_ working out as a team.

We might not have had to deal with any truly superhuman threats ever since the original Avengers had returned to their time, but I was concerned that it would only be a matter of time, which had prompted the creation of the training system we used most of the time. It generally relied on myself, Johanna, Finnick (and occasionally Prim; I wanted her kept out of combat but I had to acknowledge that she might end up in a fight some day) practising in a VR simulation similar to the technology used by the Capitol when preparing us for the Quarter Quell, pitting us against a wave of virtual opponents armed with only our standard weapons.

However, we took care to include at least one additional 'practice bout' for the team each day, where Finnick, Johanna and I attempted to attack Peeta while he was wearing the armour, the older two Victors armed with long poles while I used a set of blunted arrows. With Peeta our strongest available member, we had concluded that this was the best way for us to practice our skills in the event of facing another superhuman opponent; the mock weapons helped to ensure that we didn't do any actual damage to the Iron Man armour with our real weaponry, but they were all equipped with small 'paintballs' on the business ends so that we could confirm where we'd struck Peeta after the fight was over. Peeta also kept his repulsors dialled down to their lowest possible level during the fights, allowing the blasts to be felt without actually hurting anyone, and only flew on a few rare occasions while otherwise fighting as though we were all restricted to ground level, but it was generally an excellent method of getting in some extra practise.

Of course, Thor taught us a few extra tricks when he came down to assist us in our latest missions, and I liked to think that he'd be there if we ever really needed him, but at the same time, I had to remind myself that he was a king of his own realm and couldn't really afford to spend too much time here on Earth if he wasn't _needed_.

Glancing at my inbox, I was slightly disappointed to see that Steve didn't have any real updates for us on the Ark situation, but I wasn't entirely surprised to see another new message from Gale.

Of everything I'd accomplished since Steve asked me to be an Avenger, the only thing I regretted was the loss of my friendship with Gale. He'd become a member of the new Peacekeepers after most of Snow's appointed leaders had been forced out, the new group working to keep the peace in each district by rotating from one to the other on a monthly basis with holidays home if requested for special occasions. Gale enjoyed the work and the chance to see other Districts, but he seemed to be convinced that he could do more, sending me messages asking if he could be 'assigned' to the Avengers every other week.

Despite our long history, I had repeatedly told him that it wasn't going to happen; he might be a strong fighter, but he just didn't…

I was ashamed to admit it even to myself, but in the end, despite all that he'd done for me over the years, I'd come to realise that Gale didn't _deserve_ to be an Avenger.

I'd once asked Steve why he'd consented to let Johanna stay on as an Avenger after our first assault when she and Gale had similar temper issues when it came to the Capitol and Gale had been 'disqualified' due to his anger. Steve had explained his decision as the result of his belief that Gale's problem lay more in the fact that he was just angry at everything the Capitol represented, where Johanna had focused her anger on Snow and the agents responsible for killing her family, and actually seemed to be happier now that Snow was gone.

Gale might be a trained Peacekeeper now, but every time I met him I could still see traces of that old anger burning inside him, wanting to lash out at the Capitol that had kept the Districts in chains for so long…

I was ashamed to admit it, but every time I learned which District Gale was working in now, I kept an eye on the news from that area in case of reports of Peacekeeper brutality. It wasn't that I didn't trust Gale, it was just… I just wasn't sure if I could trust his anger to stay focused.

In the end, as Steve had said to me during our first conversation on the subject of Gale, Gale only wanted to join us so that he could keep killing the enemy; Johanna was on the team because she wanted to ensure that the kind of people who had risen to power under Snow would never have a similar opportunity. I doubted I'd ever be comfortable with her choice of codename, but I could appreciate the fact that she didn't just go out there swinging the axe; whenever we got into a fight, Johanna always seemed to focus on finding the soldiers who clearly enjoyed their work before going into action herself.

As much as I wanted to believe in my former partner, I couldn't shake the fear that if I had put Gale in a similar position, he would have just dived in and killed everyone because they had been working with Snow.

Right now, however, I had bigger things to worry about than my more distant relationship with Gale. Beetee had dropped in on our training session to confirm that he'd arrived, but since then there hadn't been any sign of activity from him or Steve, even if the lights in our facility's monitoring room confirmed that someone was active in that building. After I was satisfied that we'd trained as much as we could without starting to just push ourselves to exhaustion, I'd called the session off for the night; if Beetee and Steve were still working on things this late, I had to assume that they'd have enough respect for us to give us the chance to rest unless something really urgent came up.

Considering how late it was now, I was fairly sure that we wouldn't be called on unless something urgent came up, which meant that I was going to take the opportunity to focus on nothing more important than having a good few hours of sleep. Shrugging off my uniform, I collapsed onto my bed, sighing in relief as I wrapped the covers around me.

We might be dealing with a complex visit from outer space, but right now, I was just going to have some rest…

* * *

The next morning, after a decent night's sleep, the five of us gathered in the facility's main observation area alongside Callie, as Steve and Beetee revealed the results of the previous night's search.

"So… Mount Weather's active?" Callie said, looking at Steve and Beetee in surprise at their news. "The kids made it-?"

"We can't say," Beetee said.

"Why not?" Finnick asked. "I mean, if the base is active and you haven't heard from it before now, must be because someone just got there, right?"

"Unfortunately, that's not the case; while we can't hack the database in depth at this distance, I _was_ able to access the facility's activity records," Beetee explained, looking grimly at his fellow former Victor. "There's definitely something in Mount Weather, but it can't be the kids Callie's people sent down; what I _have_ been able to access confirms that Mount Weather's been active for at least the last year or so, and Callie confirmed that the dropship with the children only arrived here a couple of months ago."

"Which means that there's someone _else_ out there we need to find out more about," Peeta said grimly.

"Precisely," Steve confirmed. "Even before the cataclysm, I'd be concerned about this situation; as it is, the idea that someone's been operating in a supposedly abandoned military base for the last century or so, with full access to nuclear weapons and no signs that they're aware of or interested in contacting the rest of the world…"

"We have to assume the worst?" I asked.

"And find out what's going on in there as soon as possible," Steve said, his tone grimmer than before at my assessment of the situation. "We've already dismantled most of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile; I'd rather not have to worry about some unknown group possessing that kind of firepower when we know nothing about them, and then there's the issue of contacting the rest of the Ark to think about."

"So, we thinking of paying these guys a full-frontal visit to 'explain' the situation, eh?" Johanna smiled, reaching over to pick up Jarnbjorn and give it a twirl in her artificial hand. "I can go with that-"

"Only a small team at first," Steve corrected, glaring over at the self-titled Bloodaxe. "We have theories, but we don't _know_ what the situation is over there, and I'd rather not send the whole team in until I know they're needed."

"In other words… we want to make a direct impression without looking like we want to start a fight?" Peeta asked uncertainly.

"Precisely," Steve said, before he turned to look at me. "Katniss, take Peeta, get your equipment, and prepare a hovercraft for departure; I'll join you soon-"

" _You're_ going with them?" Finnick said, looking at Steve in surprise. "I thought you said you were-"

"Normally, you'd be right, but since we're investigating an old military base, if there's anything in there, I'm the person best qualified to find our way around it," Steve said firmly. "If we had more intel and Prim had more training, I'd suggest that we take her as well, but as it stands neither of those conditions apply, so I'm taking out our current powerhouse and our leader to demonstrate our capabilities."

"Sounds like a plan," I nodded at Steve in approval, smiling slightly as I noticed Peeta's brief discomfort at being referred to as a 'powerhouse'. He might not have been qualified to be an Avenger on his own merits, but Steve and I both agreed that he had been the right choice to 'inherit' the armour after Tony left, as his own fear of the power he now possessed would stop him from ever abusing it.

I just had to wonder what we'd find when we got there…

* * *

AN 2: OK, for those fans of 'The 100' who are waiting for their moment, I can assure you that the main characters of that series will be joining this story as of the next chapter; I've had to make some mental adjustments to the timeline to accommodate these events and what we saw in the show, but I think the result will work out


	5. Avenging the Ground and Sky

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: This chapter marks a shift from the existing POV, as we shift to the events of 'The 100'. For fans of the show, this section diverges from canon around the beginning of the episode "Many Happy Returns", focusing on Anya and Clarke's escape, so anything that happened prior to the events depicted here was the same as in canon, with certain exceptions that will be explored later. For those who haven't seen the show, I'll try and cover the essential details of the first season or so before we get into the main action; hope you like the results.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Ever since she had been removed from her cell and told that she was being sent to Earth, nothing had unfolded exactly as Clarke Griffin had expected. Aside from the personal revelation that her father had died because her mother had betrayed him, she'd lost Wells before she could even decide if she'd forgive him for lying to her, she had that whole mess with Finn before Raven arrived, her attempt to negotiate for peace had fallen apart because some people had itchy trigger fingers, and then, just when it seemed like they'd found allies, she'd found out that the residents of Mount Weather were draining the Grounders to sustain themselves.

Even now, Clarke wasn't entirely sure why she'd chosen to save Anya and escape rather than just accept the status quo as the grounders getting their 'just deserts', but she wouldn't change what she'd done; nobody deserved what they were going through, and she couldn't be sure if her people were the next 'targets' for the mountain's experiments if they stayed there for too long.

She might have grown out of her old days of hero-worship based on Callie's old stories, but the principles that those old champions had lived by remained with her; whatever else Anya had done, nobody deserved what was happening in there, but Anya was the only person she could find who might have been willing to listen to her.

 _Like_ that _worked out the way I hoped_ , she mused, as another jerk on her arms reminded her of what had really happened. Just when she thought she'd been making progress with Anya after getting them both out of Mount Weather, the Grounder leader had knocked her out, tied her up, and was now forcibly leading her back to the Grounder 'commander' rather than consider the possibility that she might have something useful to contribute to this mess they were in at the moment.

What happened to the days when people just thanked you for saving their lives, rather than blaming you for everything?

"Anya," she said, trying to contain her indignation despite feeling like her arms were being yanked out of their sockets, "we've been walking for hours; where are we going?"

"Quiet," Anya said firmly, even as she continued to walk through the forest.

"Why not just kill me and get it over with?" Clarke asked; she was almost certainly going to be executed when they reached their destination, but she'd like to know why Anya was taking this long about it.

"You can tell the commander what the mountain men are doing to us in there -" Anya began.

"So let's work together," Clarke countered, tugging on the rope to bring Anya around to face her as she tried to make her point. "We don't have to be enemies."

"And unite with someone as weak as you?" Anya said scathingly. "I have what I need."

"Hey!" Clarke protested, deciding not to point out that she was the only reason Anya was even outside Mount Weather right now when she was trying to get the other woman on her side. "We both want the same thing."

Further conversation was cut off when Clarke saw a green light on Anya's chest, followed by Anya glancing over her shoulder and dragging them both to the ground as a dart hit a tree behind the spot where Anya had been standing.

"They found us," Anya said, grimly assessing the surrounding Mount Weather forces, clad in dark all-encompassing body-suits and carrying weapons. "Run."

With that command, Anya got back to her feet and began to run further into the trees, Clarke only just managing to grab the previously-fired dart from the tree where it had struck; it wouldn't be much of a weapon, but it would be one that nobody would expect her to have, and that was what mattered most right now.

Even after spending the last couple of months on the ground, it was still hard to keep up with Anya in their current circumstances. Clarke did her best to match Anya's pace and motions, even stepping where she stepped as best she could in case there was some trap or trick that she might have missed on her own, but she didn't need Anya to confirm that she had made a few mistakes. Admittedly, she was surprised and disturbed when Anya paused to insist that she and Clarke cover themselves with mud to increase their chances at avoiding detection, but she appreciated the intent behind the disguise; at least the Grounder leader wasn't planning to abandon her.

With their camouflage opportunities further improved by that 'disguise', they had continued their escape, but the guards had just continued to remain just a few crucial steps behind them, never actually seeing them but always able to keep up. Anya had led them on all kinds of complex trails as they made their escape, sometimes even risking doubling back on their path to confuse their opponents, but they still seemed to be just a short distance behind them no matter what the two young women did.

"How are they still following us?" Clarke asked, looking back at their pursuers incredulously as she and Anya paused at the top of a steep hill.

"Because of you," Anya said, panting as she reached over to pick up a nearby rock. "Time to end this-"

"Anya!" Clarke protested, raising her hands defensively while keeping her voice as low as she could despite her panic. "I'm stepping where you step, we're covered in mud; we're not leaving a trail."

"They're following something," Anya said, keeping a hold of the rock even as she didn't seem as inclined to use it now.

"They're not following us… they're _tracking_ us," Clarke realised, as a sudden thought came to her; she was fairly sure nobody had planted anything on her, but so far she hadn't had a real reason to check herself over. "Search yourself; if I'm right, it should feel like a… a small bump just under your skin."

Clarke was still checking her upper body when Anya suddenly pulled down one sleeve, revealing a small bump of twisted skin on her left forearm.

"It's you," Clarke said, as she and Anya exchanged glances before Clarke got down to business. "OK, I could remove it, but you need to untie my hands; I just need something sharp and sterile-"

Plans for an impromptu operation were cut short when Anya lunged forward and bit into her own arm, letting out a brief groan of pain before she raised her head and spat out what Clarke sincerely hoped was the tracker.

"I will not go back there," Anya said firmly.

"All right…" Clarke began, just as she heard something loud in the sky above them. Glancing up in apprehension of another Mount Weather weapon, Clarke saw what she initially thought was a missile heading right for their position, but then it zoomed past them and landed on the ground, half-way up the hill that Clarke and Anya had just climbed, revealing that it was actually a figure that Clarke had only ever seen in Callie's old history books.

The colour scheme wasn't an exact match, and it seemed slightly disjointed in a few places, as though parts had been cobbled together from other sources rather than assembled all at once, but if she wasn't looking at someone wearing the armour of Callie's personal hero, Clarke would eat her stolen dart.

"Hi there," a voice came from the Iron Man armour as he looked at the Mount Weather soldiers before him. "I don't suppose you'd care to explain what you're doing here?"

In response, the guards raised their guns and fired at the new arrival, only for the darts they fired to strike the strong red armour and fall to the ground uselessly.

"OK," the figure said, looking down at the fallen darts before he looked back at the guards. "Thanks for clarifying where you stand."

With those words, the man in the armour raised his hands and fired what Clarke could only describe as bursts of energy at his attackers, the blasts coming from the palms of his hands with such ease that Clarke couldn't believe what she was looking at. She barely had time to process that the attack had started before all four men were lying on the ground, still and unmoving, as the man in armour turned to look at them.

"Hi," he said, holding up his hands in what was probably intended as a calming gesture, but just made Anya tense beside Clarke as she looked at him. "OK, for the record, I know that this _probably_ looks bad, but I promise, I won't attack _you_ if you don't attack _me_ …"

"Who are-?" Anya began defensively.

"Are… are you _Iron Man_?" Clarke interjected, staring at the suit in shock as she finally managed to ask the most important question.

"You've heard of me, then?" the man in the armour asked, sounding like he was smiling as he turned to face her.

"Well, I've heard the stories… I always preferred Captain America…" Clarke admitted, suddenly feeling embarrassed to be discussing her childhood heroes with Anya right beside her.

"What are you talking about?" Anya asked, looking between Clarke and the man- _Iron Man_ \- in confusion. "Who is this man?"

"As your friend here just confirmed, I'm Iron Man," the man in the armour said, nodding briefly at Anya. "I'm one of a team we call 'the Avengers', tasked with protecting Earth from threats beyond the normal range of things; we've been a bit busy in our area before now, but we detected the Ark coming down-"

Clarke was saved from making any stupid responses to the revelation that the Avengers were still active in the present when there was a loud clanging sound from just behind her, prompting her and Anya to turn around to see a young woman dressed in black, standing up and sliding a shield over her right arm.

If Iron Man had been unexpected, this woman's appearance was just strange. The shield she carried was large and round with a pattern of contracting circles on it, but unlike the red-and-white pattern that Clarke had seen on Captain America's shield in Callie's book, this shield was painted in orange and black circles, with a symbol in the centre that looked like some kind of bird with a long thin beak and its wings spread. She was also dressed in what Clarke could only think of as some bizarre combination of armour and a bird costume, with white wing-like folds under the arms and a helmet that resembled a bird, although Clarke doubted from the style that the costume would actually be capable of real flight.

Looking up, Clarke tried not to stare at the sight of some kind of hovercraft silently waiting above them, an open hatch underneath it that seemed to be angled just right for the new arrival's position…

Had this woman just… jumped out of that hovercraft?

"What are you doing here?" Iron Man said, looking sharply at the woman. "I thought we agreed _I'd_ make first contact?"

"And we did, until I saw that the shooting had stopped and concluded that it was my responsibility as team leader to be on-site at a time like this as well," the young woman said, looking at Iron Man with a slight smile. "We've still got aerial support if things get ugly, but I thought it might be a good idea to get an on-sight assessment once your radio went down."

"What?" Iron Man said, before he raised one hand to the side of his helmet in realisation. "Oh yeah; must have been a lucky shot…"

"What provoked the attack?" the woman asked.

"I landed and said 'hi'," Iron Man said.

"Ah," the woman said, looking at the soldiers before she turned to smile at Anya and Clarke. "Hi there; call me Mockingjay."

"Mocking…jay?" Clarke repeated, looking at the woman in confusion.

"Oh, I'm with Iron Man on the Avengers; it's just that I decided to take on a new identity rather than take up an old one," the woman called Mockingjay explained.

"Who are you?" Anya said, looking sharply

"We were just heading to Mount Weather to see what was going on there when our hovercraft picked up your tracker signal; when we traced it back to its source and found two unarmed young women being chased by a group of men with guns, it didn't take a genius to work out who was the victim in that situation."

"We are _not_ -!" Anya began, before gunfire suddenly filled the air around them. Clarke barely had time to realise what was happening when Mockingjay stepped forward and forced her to the ground, her shield suddenly a barrier between them and the new wave of attackers as Clarke dragged Anya to the ground while Iron Man started to return fire.

"They're using _guns_?" Clarke said, looking at the new woman incredulously. "They were shooting tranquiliser darts earlier-"

"Which wouldn't do them much good against the kind of animals that can be out here," Mockingjay said grimly, keeping the shield up between them and the bullets. "If they were tracking you, I assume they just wanted to capture you; with us, they're going to want to take us out fairly quickly."

"Which won't- be- that- _easy_!" Iron Man yelled as he continued to fire back at the approaching guards, hurrying down the hill with loud clanking steps as he moved his arms rapidly around himself. From what Clarke could see around Mockingjay's shield and their current angle, the various forces from Mount Weather were mounting a spirited attack, but Iron Man was just taking aim and firing too quickly for them to get past him…

The sound of something coming up from the side prompted Clarke to turn around, her eyes widening in horror at the sight of three additional guards coming at them from the side. However, she had barely opened her mouth to warn her strange protector before the woman had practically shoved her shield into Clarke's hands, stood up, drawn a bow and arrow from her back, and started firing arrows even as the soldiers began to fire their guns.

Even after seeing the Grounders in action, Clarke had never considered a bow and arrow to be a particularly effective weapon compared to a gun, but Mockingjay's abilities quickly caused her to re-evaluate that thought. The woman had barely stood up before three arrows were in the chests of the three guards that had tried to take by surprise, and only one guard had managed to get any shots off before being taken down by the arrow to the heart.

Smiling in relief, Clarke turned to look at Anya, but her glee was replaced by shock as she noticed a rapidly-bleeding wound in the Grounder's side, where a bullet from the last attack must have struck.

" _Anya_!" she screamed, thoughts of the paradox of being this concerned for someone who'd been threatening her earlier forgotten in the face of the urgent desire for the Grounder not to die. The bullet itself wasn't that serious, but on top of all the blood that Anya must have lost during her time in the mountain, the blood loss she'd be suffering right now…

"They're down!" Mockingjay said, turning back from her final shot only to realise what had happened to Anya. "Oh."

"We have to help her!" Clarke said, looking urgently at the woman in black. "She's the only one who might be able to help me talk to the Grounders-"

"Already on it," Mockingjay said, turning to call down the hill. " _Peeta_! We need evac!"

Before Clarke could ask what the first word meant, Iron Man had flown back towards them, landing just long enough to take in the scene before he walked forward and picked Anya up, cradling her in his arms before he hurtled into the sky towards the hovercraft that was still stationary above them (Clarke guessed that none of the Mount Weather teams had brought anything capable of damaging something that big).

"Hold on," Mockingjay said, reaching over to pull Clarke towards her, waiting for the younger woman to wrap her arms around her before pulling out her bow and arrow and aiming it upwards. Before Clarke could ask what the other woman was doing, Mockingjay fired the arrow with a long cable trailing behind it, hooking the other end to her belt before both of them were hauled up towards a hole in the floor of the ship above them.

As the two of them landed in the ship, Clarke briefly took in her surroundings, noting that Anya was lying on a bed on one side of the craft interior with Iron Man standing anxiously over her- his helmet now removed to reveal a warm face with light blonde hair around Mockingjay's age- before her gaze fixed on the only person in the ship she hadn't seen before; an old man, wearing a dark blue outfit with an artificial right hand, sitting at the craft's controls.

"What's the situation?" the old man said, looking back at Clarke and Mockingjay as the other woman detached the cable-arrow from the ceiling while the hatch closed below them.

"As Peeta reported, we had several armed guards chasing two unarmed women, and the guards opened fire on us when we tried to ask what was going on," Mockingjay explained as she walked up to the front of the craft. "When they opened fire on Peeta after all he'd done was introduce himself, he felt that it was safe to conclude that they were the bad guys and open fire."

"Fair point; the good guys tend _not_ to start shooting unless they have reason to believe the others will be hostile," the old man said, smiling at her before his gaze shifted to Clarke and Anya. "And these two?"

"The people those guards were chasing," Mockingjay explained firmly. "Maybe I'm just assuming things, but neither one strikes me as deranged serial killers, and the amount of men they sent out to get them back is far too excessive for anything else; I'm going to assume they're the victims here."

"Yes!" Clarke said, too eager for help to feel insulted at being classified as a victim after everything she'd been through. "We were being held captive, and they're taking blood, and…"

Her voice trailed off as she looked around the hovercraft for a moment before her gaze settled on the old man, the only person present she hadn't been introduced to yet. "And… who are you?"

"You remember how you said you preferred Captain America?" the fair-haired young man in the armour said, looking at Clarke with a smile as he indicated the old man sitting at the ship's controls. "Well, you're in luck; this is him."

Clarke could only blink incredulously at that news.

"You… you're Captain America?" she repeated, staring uncertainly at the old man.

"I used to be, anyway; I thought about renaming myself 'General Geriatric', but it felt a bit too… 'on-the-nose', if you will," the old man said, smiling warmly at Clarke before his expression became firmer as he stood up. "Now then, before we do anything else, can you explain why your companion here seems to be so short of blood from one wound?"

"It's the treatments she was subjected to at Mount Weather," Clarke said, no doubt in her mind that she was doing the right thing; if these people were part of some complicated trap set by Mount Weather, there had to be easier ways to get her and Anya back than posing as two long-gone heroes that Clarke may not have even heard of and attacking their own men.

"Treatments?" the man in the Iron Man armour repeated curiously. "What were they doing in there?"

"Taking her blood to cope with their own inability to leave the mountain," Clarke explained. "From what their president told me, they've spent so long inside the mountain that their immune systems can't cope with even the standard background radiation that exists out here on the surface; the Grounders have evolved to cope, and everyone from the Ark's even better off because we spent decades being exposed to cosmic radiation, but everyone in the mountain…"

"They're out of luck, huh?" the old man- _Captain America_?- finished for Clarke, looking grimly at Anya. "From your story, shall I assume you're from the Ark and this woman here is one of what you referred to as 'Grounders'?"

"Yes, that's- hold on, you know about the Ark?" Clark asked, looking between the three in surprise as she registered their casual reactions to everything she'd been telling them. "How-?"

"One of the station fragments crash-landed near our main research facility," Mockingjay explained. "We were able to recover a few survivors from the crash, and one of them- Callie Cartig- was able to tell us more about the last few months."

"Callie?" Clarke said, looking at the other woman in surprise. "She's alive?"

"You know her?" the man in the Iron Man armour asked, looking at her in surprise.

"Yeah, she was my mom's best friend up on the Ark…" Clarke said, shaking her head incredulously as she looked at the three people. "And… that's why you're here?"

"Precisely," the old man- it was easier to think of him that way than to think of him as _Captain America_ \- said with a firm nod. "Getting back to Mount Weather, can you explain what your companion's loss of blood has to do with anything?"

"I'm just guessing, but I think… ever since they started trying to go outside again, they've been using blood transfusions from the Grounders to let themselves leave the mountain," Clarke explained. "It's only effective in the short term and they still need protective clothing, but their president speculated that we might be the key to helping them leave…"

"Which means they'll probably start using you sooner or later," the old man noted grimly. "Once you make a decision to see some people as a resource, it's only a matter of time before everyone not allied with you becomes expendable in the name of your own goals…"

"In other words, we've found the bad guy?" Mockingjay asked with a slightly grim smile.

"To say the least," the old man confirmed.

"Really?" Clarke said, looking between the two in sudden apprehension, unable to believe what she was hearing. "You… you'll help us?"

"The three of us came all this way to find out what happened to the crashed Ark fragments; your people sound like an interesting group from what we've heard so far, we don't like what we've heard of the Mount Weather residents to date, so we're not going to leave your people alone to deal with something like this," the old man said firmly, tapping a few controls and getting up from the control panel to walk back to Anya. "In the meantime, prep for blood transfusion; if the problem with Anya here is a shortage of blood, I'm fairly sure I'm still a universal donor."

"You're going to give her _your_ blood?" Mockingjay said, looking apprehensively at the old man. "I mean, you've got that serum in you-"

"We came here to try and negotiate some kind of peace between the Ark residents and these 'Grounders'," the old man said firmly. "Whatever the risks of giving Anya here access to the serum, we're not going to let someone die if we can save them."

"I'll start prepping for transfusion," Mockingjay said quickly hurrying over to a nearby cabinet, leaving Clarke to look anxiously at the injured Grounder.

She knew that Anya was strong, but after all the blood she'd lost already…

* * *

AN 2: For the record, for those who are fans of both 'The 100' and 'Agents of SHIELD', I am aware that the same actress played Anya in 'The 100' and Jiaying in 'Agents', but despite Jiaying's virtual immortality (By which I mean she could live forever if she isn't completely torn apart and left to rot), the resemblance between the two is just going to be a coincidence with no connection between Anya and the MCU Inhumans, although she _will_ have ties to someone else, as you'll learn in the next chapter…


	6. A Different Shade of Green

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: Back to Katniss, as each side learns a bit more about each other and Anya goes through an unexpected change…

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

As far as 'first contact' went, I was unsure if what had just happened should be considered a success or a failure. On the one hand, we'd met the residents of Mount Weather and immediately engaged them in a fight before we'd had time to really learn what they were doing, but on the other hand, we had managed to rescue the daughter of Callie's friend and get some useful hands-on insight into what was going on.

Besides, as Peeta had noted, if people started shooting at someone just for talking to them, then it was a safe guess that they weren't going to be on our side. We might only have Clarke's word regarding her identity, and what we'd seen suggested that things were and Anya were strained at best, but since Clarke couldn't have known that we'd made contact with Callie already, I was willing to take her at face value at the moment.

The thing that really puzzled me right now was how those last few guards from Mount Weather had managed to get so close to us at the end. I acknowledged that Peeta and I were still learning how to use some of the technology that we'd either inherited from the original Avengers or received from the various Districts- every District able to make a contribution to the Avengers was keen to do so, even if we were working on becoming self-sufficient in terms of our resources and skills- but Steve in particular should know enough about the hovercraft's sensors not to miss a platoon of advancing armed guards.

"They must have had some kind of cloaking system to deflect our scans," Steve speculated when I brought the issue up, looking up at the ceiling in contemplation as he lay on a bed at one side of the ship, the woman Clarke had identified as Anya on the opposite side as blood pumped from his veins into hers to replenish what she'd lost, the transference taking place in a system of tubes hanging from the ceiling to prevent Anya damaging them if she woke up before we were ready. "Keep in mind that they probably don't know what the Ark's capable of now that it's landed, and we know for a fact that they don't know about us as we'd have detected any attempt to access those old networks, so they most likely wanted to make sure that they could get around without anyone finding them…"

"And they came up with that this quickly?" Clarke asked, looking around us in surprise. "We only landed a few months ago, and we've never used anything more advanced than guns and bullets-"

"Wherever they're from, they've had time to prepare and adjust; we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking they're primitive just because they've been isolated for a while," Steve said firmly, as the medical computer let out a sudden beep to inform us that the transfusion was over.

"Isolated?" Clarke repeated, looking curiously between the three of us at that comment, realising something she clearly hadn't had time to think about so far. "You mean… you're all from somewhere else on Earth? You're what they were 'isolated' from?"

"We're from the main area of this continent, and we've lived here all our lives," I explained, smiling slightly at my own casual acceptance of this knowledge; I'd barely even known that the ocean existed a few months ago, and now I was discussing the geography of our world so casually I couldn't quite believe it. "The area where your 'Grounders' and Mount Weather are located were subject to particularly heavy bombardment during the nuclear war that decimated Earth. Our… leaders… were able to build radiation shields that protected us from the worst of the fallout in our part of the country, but everyone assumed that anyone still in this area when the bombs hit was dead and that was that."

"Based on what we've heard about these 'Grounders' of yours, there must have been a few survivors on the outskirts of the blasts that everyone else missed," Steve continued, looking thoughtfully at Anya as she lay beside him. "With most of their resources lost, they probably regressed to a tribal mentality just to cope with what was left, and eventually… well, here we are."

"Oh," Clarke said, looking at me curiously before she looked at Steve. "So… if you're Captain America… I mean, I'm sorry for being blunt, but-"

"How am I still alive after this long?" Steve finished for her with a slight smile. "Further suspended animation after a particularly brutal beating, a few artificial substitutes for my more damaged organs, and the super-soldier serum that made me this way making sure that I keep on ticking at peak human potential."

"Ah," Clarke said, simply staring at him for a moment before she smiled uncertainly and held out her hand. "Well… it's an… honour to meet you; Callie told me all about the Avengers when I was growing up, and…"

She chuckled in an embarrassed manner as Steve took her hand. "It's kind of silly, but I… I always admired how you kept on trying even when it seemed like you couldn't do anything."

"Before I got the serum, you mean?" Steve asked.

"That, and… well, what you did when you were on the team," Clarke clarified, shrugging awkwardly at him. "I mean… you were the _leader_ of a team that included a god and the Hulk; I was always just amazed that you managed that."

"I just did my duty," Steve said, his expression becoming solemn for a moment before he indicated me. "These days, Mockingjay here does most of the fieldwork; I'm too old to be anything more than a coordinator."

"Oh," Clarke said, looking at him in silence for a moment before looking back at me. "So… how did you get this job?"

"A long and complicated story involving me triggering a revolution against a corrupt government and Steve deciding that I was what he was looking for in the new Avengers," I explained; talking about the time-travel elements of our 'debut' right now would just make everything far too complicated. "The important thing is that we're here now; Peeta and I are two of the current Avengers, and we have three more new members back at our main facility… along with Thor, of course."

"Thor?" Clarke repeated, looking at me with an incredulous grin. "As in, _the_ Thor? The one who was a member of the original team? He's still alive?"

"He… had a crisis of faith for a while, but he's back in the game now," Steve confirmed, smiling briefly at Clarke's grin. "He's got more responsibilities back on Asgard than he had in the past, so he doesn't participate in all our missions, but-"

Further conversation was cut short when Anya suddenly woke up, her eyes scanning her surroundings with a sense of urgency that only became more panicked as she took in the tubes connecting her arm to Steve's.

" _NO_!" she yelled, yanking the tubes out with one arm as she broke the straps that had been holding her down to stop her rolling about during the flight.

"Wait-" Steve began, quickly removing the tubes from his own arm as he stood up to look anxiously at Anya, only for his jaw to drop as he took in what was happening. Even as Peeta and I watched her, my eyes widened in shock as I saw her growing larger and her skin turning green, clothes stretching and tearing as her muscles expanded within them.

"She's a _Hulk_?" Peeta said, looking sharply at Steve. "Why wouldn't we have-?"

"It's my blood…" Steve said, before his eyes narrowed and he turned to slam his hands down on the hovercraft controls, bringing the ship to a halt mid-air as he opened the rear hatch. "Peeta, get her outside and down to the ground, ASAP!"

"On it!" Peeta said, grabbing his helmet and putting it back on before he turned back to Anya. As she broke the last of the straps holding her to the examination table, Peeta's repulsor jets fired and he charged towards Anya, grabbing her in his arms and hauling her out of the hovercraft before Clarke could say anything.

"What the _Hell_ -?" Clarke began, turning to look indignantly at me.

"If you've read anything about the Avengers, I assume you know about the Hulk," I interjected before she could say anything, giving her a moment to nod in confirmation before I continued; I wasn't entirely sure what had happened here myself, but as the leader of the Avengers, I had to at least imply that I knew what was going on. "In that case, you know that what was happening to Anya made her a potential danger to everyone here, so it was better to get her out where she couldn't break anything until we can get her to calm down-"

"But that's just going to make it _worse_!" Clarke protested, looking indignantly at me. "Please, you have to get me down there; I might still be able to calm her down!"

For a moment, I looked assessingly at Clarke, trying to judge how much of that belief was genuine and how much was just desperation, but in the end, I concluded that I had to at least let her try; with the best will in the world, Peeta's armour would be no match for an enraged Hulk, so I had an obligation to explore an alternative if one presented itself.

"OK," I said, standing up and looking over at Steve. "Stay in position; we'll call you when we're ready for extraction."

"Sure thing," Steve said, adjusting the craft's controls as I stepped up next to Clarke, waiting for her to wrap her arms around my neck before I leapt from the craft's rear door. Adjusting Clarke's position so that she was hanging only my back, I drew my shield and held it below me, waiting for a few moments as we hurtled through the air before we struck the ground, the shield absorbing the impact as Clarke leapt from my back to stare in shock at the fight now being waged between Peeta and the large creature that Anya had become.

Looking at the large green woman currently wrestling with Peeta, I was actually surprised to see that the transformation had left Anya looking reasonably proportionately similar to what she'd been before. Unlike Bruce and Snow, whose transformations into the Hulk had left them with significantly broader chests and muscular arms, Anya actually seemed to have a fairly similar build to her appearance when she'd been normal, apart from being at least two feet taller and with her skin a vivid green colour.

"Oh my God…" Clarke said, staring in awe as the new Hulk suddenly knocked one of Peeta's arms away before following the attack up with a powerful punch to his chest. "She… that's a _Hulk_?"

"Close," I said, trying to process possible solutions for stopping Anya if Clarke's theory didn't pan out; I might have killed the Maestro with an explosive arrow to the head, but with Thor currently absent, and no Hulk to help us hold her in position, this wasn't going to be simple if we had to repeat that feat…

"Close?" Clarke repeated, looking curiously at me as Peeta regained his balance and launched a series of punches at Anya; until I knew how this fight was going to go one way or the other, I wasn't ready to risk Clarke's life by taking her into something like that when Peeta could still hold her down.

"Believe me, a fully-powered Hulk would have won this fight already," I said, trying not to wince as Anya grabbed Peeta's arms and slammed her forehead into his faceplate, leaving it dented as he staggered back.

If we didn't end this soon, we might have to rebuild the Iron Man armour sooner than anyone had been planning…

"OK," I said, looking back at Clarke as Peeta tried to counter with a blast from his chest repulsor that only succeeded in sending Anya back a few feet. "If you think you can stop her, go ahead; just give Iron Man a chance to get out of the way first."

As Clarke nodded in response, I pulled out an arrow, checked that I'd made the right choice, and fired it at the combatants in front of us. One of Beetee's newer contributions to my arsenal, the arrow exploded as soon as it came within a metre of the two fighters, generating a brilliant burst of light that struck both of them in the eyes. Peeta's armour automatically filtered out the light to a level that he could tolerate, but Anya reeled backwards, hands over her eyes at the sudden blindness. According to our training, Peeta should have flown to safety as soon as the flare was triggered, but Anya's leg struck him in the chest as she reeled back, causing him to strike the ground with a badly-dented chestplate. For a moment, I began to move towards them, determined to help my fellow Avenger, but then Clarke appeared before them and I stepped back to watch; she'd taken advantage of the distraction to get into position, so now I had to give her the chance she'd come down here to take.

"Anya, _calm down_!" Clarke protested, standing between the woman who had become what I could only think of as a 'She-Hulk' and the fallen Iron Man, her hands raised defensively.

" _You_!" the creature that had once been another human said, glaring at Clarke as she raised her arms in a combat posture. "You betrayed-!"

"Steve Rogers was _giving_ you blood; he wasn't _taking_ it!" Clarke insisted. "Anya, I dragged you out of Mount Weather despite everything you'd done to my people because I believed you didn't deserve what they were doing to you in there; I swear, I wouldn't let them take you _back_ after all this!"

For a moment, as the new 'She-Hulk' glared at Clarke and Clarke returned the stare, all I could do was watch, praying that Peeta wasn't too badly injured and that she wouldn't do anything to Clarke before I could react…

Then, as I watched, I realised that the She-Hulk's appearance was already starting to change, her body becoming gradually thinner and shorter right in front of me as she stared at Clarke in an uncertain, yet thoughtful manner. After a few moments of silence, she had returned to her human appearance, her clothes ripped from the strain of her transformation but still intact enough to maintain Anya's privacy.

"You… OK?" Peeta asked the Grounder, raising his faceplate as he slowly sat up, staring at Anya all the while. I hurried over to help him to his feet, but a quick glance confirmed that the suit's arc reactor was still intact; Tony might have left Peeta instructions on how to maintain the armour, but the power source was one thing none of us wanted to recreate unless we absolutely had to.

"I am… fine," Anya answered, looking uncertainly at Peeta, Clarke and I as we gathered around her while she held up her hands, staring at them in wonder. "How could I… do that?"

"If I'm right," Steve said, walking up beside me as he looked at Anya with a thoughtful smile, "I think you're a descendant of Jennifer Walters."

"What-?" I began, looking at him in shock.

"To answer your question, I landed the ship back there once I saw that the fighting had ceased," Steve said, indicating another open area a short distance behind our current position, before he continued talking. "And to answer your second question… Jennifer was Bruce's cousin."

"Wait; _Bruce_?" Peeta repeated, wincing as he clutched at his side. "As in, Bruce _Banner_?"

"Anya's a descendant of the _Hulk_?" Clarke asked, her expression torn between shock and awe as she looked at Anya.

"Who is… the Hulk?" Anya asked, looking at Clarke with a new sense of certainty in her manner.

"He was one of the world's greatest heroes before… well, before everything went wrong," Clarke explained, grinning as she looked at Anya. "He was a normal man who was exposed to… some weird stuff, I don't remember what exactly… that mutated his body to allow him to… well, basically, when he got angry, he could do what you just did."

"And, like I said, I think you might be a distant relative of his through his paternal cousin, Jennifer Walters," Steve explained, stepping forward to continue the explanation. "Bruce and Jennifer lost touch some time ago, but given their relationship, I'm thinking that it's possible that Jennifer inherited the same genetic fluke that allowed Bruce to become the Hulk without the radiation just killing him immediately."

"And… she passed that 'fluke' on to Anya?" Clarke asked, looking at Steve uncertainly. "But… why would she just become that now?"

"Because of the transfusion?" Peeta asked.

"Most likely," Steve confirmed. "Bruce's original transformation into the Hulk was the result of him being exposed to gamma radiation and earlier versions of the serum, and Snow dropped a few gamma bombs in the early stages of the war, so when Anya received my blood, the combination of the serum, the radiation and whatever gene sequence in Bruce's family allowed him to become the Hulk must have come together to trigger… well, what we just saw."

"I… see…" Clarke said, nodding uncertainly in the manner I recognised as my own manner when faced with something I didn't quite understand but wanting to avoid further questions until a better time.

"Are you saying that… you… know someone who could do this?" Anya asked, looking apprehensively at Steve. "And… I am descended from them?"

"I knew two people who could transform in the manner that you just did," Steve confirmed grimly. "One was a man of peace who sought to protect that power from those who would abuse it… and the other was a complete psychopath who inspired me to reassemble my old team to defeat him after he took over the country."

"And-"

"You're descended from my friend," Steve interjected- evidently he didn't want to have to lie to Anya by letting her finish that question- walking over to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "He was a good man, Anya… and from everything I've heard about you from Clarke, I have faith that you'll live up to his example if you're given the chance."

As he looked solemnly at the woman who'd just been trying to beat Peeta to death a few moments ago, I was once again struck by the natural charisma Steve possessed. This woman looked like she could hold her own against Steve in a fight even without her new abilities, and he was still able to talk to her with a simple confidence that she wouldn't do anything to hurt him in response.

"How?" Anya asked, looking shakily at Steve after a moment's silence. "How can I… I was so _angry_ …"

"Help us learn more about Mount Weather's experiments, and we can give you what help we can in controlling what's happened to you," Steve said, still looking solemnly at her. "Clarke's told us some details, but we need to pool all of our resources together if we're going to make this work; this just confirms that you'll have something to contribute beyond local knowledge."

I wondered at the implications of that last sentence, but as Anya nodded in tentative agreement, I decided that now wasn't the time to tackle that issue.

I might be our field commander, but Steve still had final say in whether or not the Avengers would gain any new recruits; if he could help teach Anya how to control her transformation, she could make an interesting asset to the team…


	7. New Recruits

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

With Anya back on board the hovercraft, the Avengers had soon resumed their journey towards their main facility, taking only a few moments to confirm that they had no intention of taking Anya back to Mount Weather or making her do anything she didn't want to do before they continued. As though respecting the privacy of the two women, Steve, Mockingjay, and Iron Man had all gathered at the front of the ship while Clarke and Anya sat together at the back, the former Ark resident keeping an anxious eye on the Grounder leader.

Anya might have accepted Clarke's assurances that the Avengers weren't affiliated with Mount Weather, and she was clearly calmer than she had been when the initial transformation had taken place, but that didn't mean that she was automatically better. More than once, Clarke had seen Anya staring at her as though she wanted to say something, even if the Grounder's obvious pride made her reluctant to actually ask for help.

"You know," Clarke said at last, looking at Anya with a slight smile out of a lack of any other ideas about how to reassure her awkward ally, "there's no need to keep looking at yourself like that; you aren't going to change at random."

"How can you know?" Anya asked, looking at Clarke with what could be considered anxiety if it had come from anyone else

"Because in everything I've read of the Hulk, he only changed when he was feeling particularly emotional," Clarke explained, trying to sound confident and reassuring; she didn't want to provoke Anya by doing anything that might give her the impression Clarke thought she was weak for her reaction. "You might have more control when you're transformed than he did, but considering that you were fairly shocked when you woke up and thought I'd sent you back to Mount Weather, I think we can assume you're the same in that regard."

"Oh," Anya said, sitting in silence for a few moments, her expression shifting from anxiety to uncertainty, before she looked at him again. "You have… heard of this… 'Hulk'?"

"A bit," she admitted awkwardly, hoping that Anya wouldn't ask too many questions. As much as Clarke wanted to talk to the Grounder about some of the details regarding how her transformation had taken place, but her limited memory of Callie's old stories of the Avengers and her uncertainty about how much Anya would understand in the first place meant that she wasn't sure how much she even _could_ reveal under the circumstances…

"What was he?" Anya asked, which was at least a question that Clarke could answer.

"He was an Avenger," she said firmly, gaze fixed on the older woman as she spoke. "He was originally a scientist called Doctor Bruce Banner, but when he was working on recreating an old serum that was capable of enhancing the human body to operate at its peak potential… well, something went wrong, and he gained the ability to turn into the Hulk instead."

"And… how did _I_ become like that?"

"We're just guessing right now, but… well, we think that you and your people have been…" Clarke began, lost on how to explain this before she settled on a possible method. "Look, you know how the Mountain Men were… taking your blood?"

" _Yes_ ," Anya said, eyes narrowing at the memory.

"Well," Clarke said, trying not to pay too close attention to the flash of green in Anya's irises as she continued, "they're doing that because… over the years, the air out here has become slightly toxic. Your people have become used to it, and my people are actually able to cope with more potential dangers than yours after living in the sky, but the Mountain Men can't cope with what's out here, so they take your blood to make it… easier for them to go outside."

Anya simply stared at Clarke in silence, Clarke swallowing awkwardly as she took in her potential ally's cold stare.

"Believe me, I don't agree with them _doing_ it, I'm just explaining _why_ …" she said defensively, before she continued her explanation. "Anyway, we think that one of the things making the air out here toxic is the same energy source that triggered Doctor Banner's ability to turn into the Hulk. Captain Rogers over there… he was exposed to the original version of the serum that Doctor Banner was trying to recreate when he became the Hulk, so we're thinking that, when he gave you a blood transfusion, the serum in his blood mixed with the energy you've been taking in over the years, and… well, it all came together and made you the 'She-Hulk'."

Anya simply stared at Clarke in silence after that statement, but the contemplative expression in her eyes at least suggested that she was intrigued at the explanation Clarke had provided even if she didn't understand the finer details.

"The point of all that," the woman known as Mockingjay said as she walked over to sit opposite Clarke and Anya, "is that you've just received a very unexpected… 'gift', is probably the best term for this situation… and we'd like to offer you the chance to use that."

"In what way?" Anya asked, her attention shifting to the Mockingjay just as the sound of the engines powering the hovercraft shifted.

"We'll explain once we're on the ground," the other young woman said, Clarke's stomach experiencing a slight jolt as she felt the ship starting to descend, albeit at a far more gradual rate than the dropship she'd come to Earth in all those months ago. "If nothing else, there's still a couple of other Avengers you need to meet."

As the ship shuddered with a slight thump as it made contact with the ground, Clarke tried to restrain herself as she unbuckled her straps, but even after seeing Anya's transformation, the thought that she was about to meet actual modern-day _Avengers_ …

They might not have stopped the nuclear apocalypse that forced the Ark to come together, but they'd still saved humanity from becoming slaves to literal alien invaders; no matter what else had gone wrong afterwards, Clarke couldn't see how that could be anything less than a victory.

However, looking at the small group before her as the hovercraft's doors opened, Clarke hated to admit it, but she suddenly felt less confident in her chances of saving her friends. Mockingjay and Iron Man were certainly good at what they did, and the news that Thor was still alive was encouraging, but if the other Avengers consisted of just a man wearing what looked like a wetsuit while carrying an elaborate trident, and a one-armed woman with an artificial arm and an extremely large axe…

It wasn't exactly anything to sneeze at, but it wasn't the kind of arsenal she'd been hoping for after hearing all those stories of the original Avengers from-

"Callie?" she said, staring incredulously at the sight of her mother's best friend walking out of one of the side buildings.

" _Clarke_?" Callie said, staring at her in shock for a moment before she ran over to wrap Clarke in her arms, Clarke returning the hug for a moment before Callie stepped back. "What _happened_ to you?"

"We saved her and her friend here from a group of soldiers," Mockingjay explained as Anya walked out of the hovercraft alongside Iron Man, the Grounder looking at the other two in an apprehensive manner. "By the way, Clarke, Anya, these are two of the other Avengers; Bloodaxe and the Mariner."

"Bloodaxe?" Clarke repeated.

"I like it," the woman said, flexing the fingers of her artificial arm as she studied Clarke.

"So… what's going on here?" Callie asked, looking anxiously at Clarke. "The last we heard on the Ark, you were still facing war with those 'Grounders'…"

"They're not the major problem any more," Clarke said grimly; she knew that things with the Grounders would still be difficult, no matter what happened with Anya right now, but for the moment Mount Weather was the more serious problem. "Things with the Grounders just escalated due to bad decisions on both sides; we have a more immediate threat that's after us for a definite reason."

"Which is?"

"It turns out that Mount Weather's still inhabited, but the residents have been trapped in an isolated environment for so long that they can't even step outside without collapsing from radiation sickness," Clarke explained. "They're using captured grounders to treat their illnesses with massive blood transfusions, but since the rest of the Hundred are all better at coping with radiation because we spent our lives in space…"

"You're thinking they'll move on to your people as a better source of blood, right?" Bloodaxe asked grimly.

"Let's just say I've… learned to assume the worst," Clarke said, looking awkwardly at the one-armed woman.

"Good call," the older woman nodded firmly at Clarke. "I realised that _before_ some bastard crushed my arm."

"Someone _crushed_ your arm?" Callie repeated, looking at the artificial limb with a new sense of shock. "How-?"

"That's a fairly long story that will have to wait until later," Mockingjay said, looking firmly over at Callie for a moment before she turned her attention back to Anya and Clarke. "What matters right now is that we have a target, but we only have a fairly small team to deal with it-"

"We dealt with Snow-" Bloodaxe began.

"No offence, but back then we had back-up, we knew what we were going after, and nobody innocent was going to get hurt," the man who'd been introduced as the Mariner noted. "This time around, we can't guarantee Thor's going to be here and I don't think we want to be the kind of people who assume that everyone in an area deserves to die because of what kind of crap their leaders are up to."

"In other words, we can't just hack our way in without killing even the innocents," Bloodaxe noted, staring at her weapon for a moment before she sighed in frustration. "Damnit… being the good guy sucks sometimes."

"If this was easy, everyone would be doing it," Steve Rogers noted as he walked out of the hovercraft to join the team, smiling at the other two Avengers before turning back to the other four people who'd been in the hovercraft. "Still, you're wrong about one thing, Mariner; we have extra assets this time around as well."

"In what way?" Mariner asked. "Bloodaxe's arm aside, three of us are just really really good at kicking butt, and Iron Man's not that good without the suit-"

"It's been adequate for what we've had to deal with so far," the Mockingjay put in, looking over at the Mariner before she looked back at Clarke and Anya. "But I think I know what Captain Rogers means; considering what happened on the way here, we have an opportunity to do more."

"In what way?" Anya asked, looking suspiciously at the younger woman.

"Your changes make her uniquely qualified, but what I'm thinking of goes beyond that," Mockingjay explained, as she looked over at Clarke. "From what Callie's told us, things between you and the Grounders were… strained… before the Ark lost contact with you, and I have a feeling that things haven't improved much since even if you're both here?"

"Mistakes were made," Clarke said, trying to sound diplomatic; she recognised that the Hundred and the Grounders had made mistakes, but she didn't want to sound like she was blaming one side more than the other.

"Which is why this is a perfect opportunity to show that you can move past those mistakes," Captain Rogers put in, stepping forward to look at Clarke in particular with a smile. "Follow me."

Exchanging glances with Anya, Clarke shrugged and walked after the old man as he led them to one of the smaller huts around them, Anya close behind her and the rest of the Avengers around them. As they entered the hut, Clarke was surprised to find that its interior consisted solely of a series of smaller doors in front of them, along with a keypad on the left side, and nothing else.

"What is this?" she asked.

"You'll find out," Captain Rogers said, as he turned to look at her. "Clarke Griffin, what would you do to save your people?"

"Whatever I have to do that doesn't kill innocent people," Clarke said firmly.

"In that case," Steve continued, walking over to the keypad and tapping a few buttons, "what would you say to this?"

As soon as his finger touched the last button, one of the doors opened, revealing a strange-looking harness with thick 'straps' and what actually looked like rockets on its back.

"These belonged to a valued friend of mine," the old man explained, noting the curious stares he was receiving from the rest of the group. "He was never able to officially join the Avengers before everything went wrong, but he helped me mitigate the worst of the damage that my enemies might have done if I'd been fighting on my own, and I… inherited his gear after his death."

"Hold on; you've had _more_ equipment-?" Bloodaxe began.

"They weren't Avengers, so I felt that storing them separate from the rest of the weapons limited the risk, and I never found anyone I felt comfortable entrusting any of them to," Captain Rogers interjected, fixing the one-armed woman with a firm stare before his expression softened as he looked at Clarke. "Until now, anyway."

"Hold on; are you saying-?" Clarke began.

"Clarke Griffin, I want you to be the new Falcon."

Clarke could only blink at that statement.

"Falcon?" she repeated.

"Appropriate," Anya noted, smiling briefly at Clarke. "You lead the Sky People, after all."

"And I understand that you have some medical training?" the old man asked, smiling as Clarke looked at him in surprise. "The way you assessed Anya's condition without us needing to tell you what to do; only someone with experience could do everything that automatically."

"Well… my mom was the chief medical officer on the Ark, so I picked up a few things…" Clarke explained awkwardly.

"Don't worry, we've already got one field medic, so you don't have to take it on if you don't want to; it just makes it more appropriate," Rogers explained with a smile. "The first Falcon was a field medic as well as a soldier; as Anya noted, considering that you lead the 'Sky People' from the perspective of her tribe, assuming his codename just makes sense."

"Ah," Clarke said, looking at the harness once again.

It would probably need a few adjustments to fit her- she might be in good shape, but even an amateur could see that this thing had been designed for someone a bit taller and bulkier than she was, and shed need to work out what she wanted to wear under the harness since her standard jacket was a bit basic- and she was definitely going to need time to train with it if this thing was what it looked like… but she had to admit, in a strange way, she felt that she was going to enjoy the opportunity she'd just been given.

"Anya," Captain Rogers continued as he turned to the Grounder leader, "obviously, we're extending you a similar invitation; think you'd be interested in helping us take down Mount Weather?"

"Is this because of what you did to me?" Anya asked, walking up to look Rogers directly in the eyes.

"Among other factors," Rogers confirmed. "The fact that you're… well, that you've become a new Hulk makes it easier for you to contribute to the team, but I'd be making this offer even if you were still human. From what Clarke's told us, you're a leader among your people, so you can obviously handle yourself in a fight, and what's happening to Mount Weather affects the Hundred and the Grounders equally; if we're going to stop them, I want to make it clear that we're doing this for the sake of both your people, rather than just one side or the other."

Anya stared at the old man in an assessing manner for a moment, apparently unaware as Clarke looked anxiously at the Grounder leader from the side, before she held out her hand.

"If you seek the destruction of the mountain, I will fight at your side," Anya said, smiling slightly at Rogers.

"Thanks," Rogers said, giving Clarke a brief nod as she glanced at Anya in relief before he turned to address the team. "OK, we have some ideas of the situation on the Ark over the last few months, but we need to know about what's been happening on the ground; Clarke, Anya, give us what you can, and then I'll see about giving Clarke a crash course in using the Falcon harness while we sort out what to do next."

It was a credit the command authority he'd developed over the centuries that not even Clarke or Anya objected to Steve Rogers' orders despite the relatively brief time they'd known him.

Whatever was about to happen, Clarke had a feeling their lives were set to become _very_ complicated…


	8. Briefing and Preparation

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: A jump forward a few days and back to Katniss' POV for this chapter, as she reflects on the Avengers' newest members and their plans for tackling the current situation; hope you like the results

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Sitting in my room after my latest briefing with Steve, as prepared for the team's upcoming departure as I would ever be, I had to wonder if I was really ready to face our first major solo operation without the original Avengers. Dealing with the occasional group of surviving pro-Snow Peacekeepers or assorted Capitol fanatics who couldn't let go of the past was one thing, but from what we'd learned so far, we were about to face fanatics armed with nuclear weapons who were determined to get to the surface even if it cost the lives of innocent people…

Maybe the original Avengers had expressed their faith in me before they left, but that didn't mean I was certain that I was worthy of it yet. After Snow's death, we'd only been dealing with renegades who preferred to hold on to what Snow had tried to build because they'd lose too much if we succeeded, and none of them had been a match for Finnick, Johanna and I, never mind Peeta and Thor.

Still, even if we'd only been training them for a few days so far, I had to admit that our new members seemed promising. After Clarke and Anya had explained some of the key points about the conflict between 'the Grounders' and 'the Hundred'- neither name might be entirely accurate, but it was easier than thinking of something else- Steve had ordered the rest of the team to spend the rest of the day training while he and I worked out what to do next. As much as I'd been flattered at the evidence that he trusted my judgement enough to contribute to a discussion like that, I was also uncomfortable at the thought of taking that degree of control of a situation like this, but we still had time for Steve to give me any further 'crash courses' until I felt comfortable taking point on my own.

While Clarke had been eager for us to go into action as quickly as possible, she'd accepted our argument that she should wait for a little while to get more accustomed to working with us as a team, particularly after Anya had agreed that the 'mountain men'- as she called the residents of Mount Weather- were unlikely to turn on the rest of the teenagers being kept in the mountain immediately when they'd been fairly reasonable so far. From what I'd heard of the mountain's president, he struck me so far as being a more reasonable, kinder version of Snow, at least in terms of appearance. His own people might take precedent over anything else, and what he'd been doing to the Grounders sounded barbaric no matter how 'primitive' they were, but if he was going to resort to threats to get what he wanted he would have probably locked Clarke and her people up as soon as he found them rather than give them free reign.

As it was, even if we weren't going to attack Mount Weather immediately, that still left us with the challenge of working out how to incorporate Clarke and Anya into the team as quickly and efficiently as possible. Even if we were still waiting to hear back from Thor, the rest of us could still give our new members a crash course before we had to go into action, which had prompted a series of quick training sessions over the last couple of days.

The first step had been to spend some time assessing Clarke and Anya's current combat skills- while also working to keep Anya calm until we had a clearer plan for training her in her 'She-Hulk' state- and in general we were all satisfied with their current combat abilities. Anya's fighting style was comparatively rougher than the more developed methods my team had been trained in for the Games, but considering that we'd been trained to provide a good spectacle while in the Arenas where Anya's training just focused on staying alive, the contrast made sense, and I certainly wasn't going to criticise something if it worked. Clarke hadn't exactly demonstrated any real _skill_ when we were fighting, with her 'strategy' consisting solely of charging at her opponents and punching and/or kicking them as quickly as possible, but her obvious determination made up for that. Finnick had already volunteered to give her a few quick lessons as the closest person we had to an 'unarmed combat expert', as Peeta and I still relied on our equipment and Johanna's new arm gave her an unfair advantage, but all of us were aware that we needed her to have all her equipment before we could start any lessons in earnest.

In terms of their new costumes, Beetee was working on adjusting the Falcon harness for Clarke's smaller size, as well as a few other details he claimed to have been inspired to incorporate into the original design, and had also revealed that he was putting together a virtual reality program that would allow Clarke to get used to the harness before she had to actually fly with it in the real world. As anxious as she was to help her people, Clarke acknowledged that she needed to learn how to use her new equipment before she could be of any use, but she was clearly eager for the chance to give it a try in any form. As for Anya, while most of our clothing matters were dealt with by our former prep teams, since we all insisted on having the final say in any changes that might be made to our costumes, we were doing what we could to find something that would work with Anya's powers and history. Something that could cope with her changing sizes during her transformation was an obvious issue, but beyond that, the prep teams were having trouble finding something that she would feel comfortable in that would also 'fit' with the rest of the team.

As far as fitting in went, Anya was proving to be a tricky one. Considering our role in her transformation into a new Hulk, she seemed to be willing to accept our superior understanding of her new state, but I got the impression that she resented the sudden transition for a former leader to a subordinate in a new group despite that. I was taking care to watch my attempts to give Anya orders while remembering that she wasn't already an 'admirer' of me as the Mockingjay, but it was hard to remember that I had to prove myself to the two new members on more than a provisional basis as well as deal with the new crisis.

Still, even if integrating the new members to the team was proving a challenge, they were at least working well with each other. Despite what we'd heard of the conflict that had arisen between the Hundred and the Grounders, I got the impression that Clarke was grateful that Anya had accepted Steve's invitation to join the Avengers. Maybe it was just because she was glad not to be the only new face in the team, or maybe she hadn't given up hope that peace between her and the Grounders was possible, but either way, when we weren't training, Clarke always went over to talk to Anya, and the older woman appeared to be grateful for Clarke's company despite whatever had happened between them in the past.

On a broader note, Steve had made contact with the new Panem government to fill them in on the situation; after the Ark had crash-landed, he'd been able to negotiate for them to wait until we had time to check it out ourselves, but he needed to give them an update soon before anyone else tried to step in. Paylor had naturally been shocked to learn about the existence of the Ark, along with the new potential threat we faced from Mount Weather, but she had agreed that it was best to let us handle this situation given that Panem was still focusing on its own reconstruction efforts right now. If Mount Weather had nuclear weapons, Panem was in no shape to draw attention to itself, but one of the main advantages of our current team was that we could act as a relatively discreet 'strike force' against the mountain without making our origins obvious.

On a more personal note, I was also trying to work out how I should feel about the fact that, even after all this time, Steve was still keeping a few secrets from me. The revelation that he'd kept additional equipment from us for all this time had been a shock, after I'd spent so long certain that he was never going to conceal anything from me for his own agenda like Snow or Coin had…

However, in hindsight, I could see why he'd made that decision, and it wasn't for the same reasons as the last two Presidents had done so. For him, the Avengers had been the best hope for the world, and based on what he'd told us about the original Falcon, these other people had just been 'additional allies' when he'd known them. Even if he'd considered their equipment worth keeping, he probably didn't want to start handing out their gear until he was sure that he could give it to people who would use it properly.

The new team might be making progress, but I knew that Steve still had some doubts about Johanna in particular, even if he had acknowledged that she deserved to stay on the team after losing her arm to the Maestro. He'd never explicitly said it, but I always felt that he mainly tolerated Finnick and Johanna being on the team because they were making their own way rather than using someone else's identities, even if he respected Peeta's use of the armour ever since Tony 'chose' the former baker as his successor. If we ever needed additional members and he could find the right person to wear them, I believed that Steve would share the rest of the equipment with us then; for the moment, what we had was enough, and he hadn't yet met anyone he felt was 'worthy' of what else he kept in storage.

Getting my thoughts back to the matter of the Ark, I had to admit that things in that regard weren't going too badly, all things considered. Clarke had checked on the rest of the survivors from Callie's section of the Ark, but she'd been satisfied that we'd done the best we could for them, and decided to leave them in our care until they had more fully recovered and could be safely moved somewhere else.

As our plan currently stood, we were going to have one last meeting to go over the finer details tomorrow, and then, depending on whether we needed to do anything else, we were off to the Ark to see about making a more definite plan about how to get the rest of Clarke's people out of Mount Weather.

God, I hoped this would work…

* * *

When I arrived in the briefing room the next morning, the only thing that went completely as expected was that Steve was the only person there before me. I had just sat down beside him to talk about our next move when the door opened and Peeta, Johanna, Finnick, Clarke and Anya all walked in, Johanna and Finnick dressed in their combat gear- the suit wasn't comfortable enough for Peeta to walk around in it full-time- while Clarke and Anya were wearing clean leather outfits that reminded me of what I'd worn in my first Games.

"I take it those aren't what you plan to wear in the field?" Steve asked, looking pointedly at the two women.

"What's wrong with it?" Clarke asked, looking down at herself curiously.

"Lack of distinction, for one thing," Steve clarified. "I appreciate that you're used to blending in to your surroundings, but as Avengers one of our primary advantages is that we create a distinct impression on our opponents; you're not going to do that if you just look like everyone else."

"You ask me to change what I am-?" Anya began.

"We're asking you to adapt to the new rules of what you've become," I said, looking reassuringly at the Grounder leader. "This isn't what you're used to, but none of us were used to this when Steve gave us the role; all we're asking you to do is adapt your clothing when you're working with us to reflect your new position, not change who you are when you're not fighting with us."

Anya stared at us for a few moments, before she sighed and glanced over at Clarke.

"I have been required to make many changes since your people came to us," she said grimly. "So long as I am not expected to completely ignore what I have done in the past… I will accept it."

"No worries," Finnick smiled. "Believe me, being Mockingjay hasn't stopped Katniss going out hunting on occasion; this gig doesn't change anything you don't want it to change."

"You hunt?" Anya asked, looking at me curiously.

"It was my main source of income before I became an Avenger," I explained briefly, before I turned back to Steve. "So, what's our next move?"

"We need to plan what step we want to take next before we go into action," Steve explained.

"Obviously, our first priority is to contact the largest Ark fragment and confirm that anyone there is still alive-"

"Why?" Anya interjected.

"Because from what I've heard about your people, it will be easier to approach them once we have an established presence in that part of the country rather than just showing up, and if Clarke and Callie are examples the Ark already knows about the Avengers," Steve explained, allowing Anya to acknowledge his decision before he continued. "Once Katniss has explained our reasons for being there to whoever's in charge at the Ark and we can verify our status, we'll move on to talk to the Grounders and plan-"

" _Me_?" I interjected, looking at Steve in shock. "Aren't you-?"

"You're not going to get anywhere if I'm always standing behind you," Steve explained, smiling warmly at me. "You're capable, Katniss, but you need to have faith in yourself, and that's not going to happen if I'm always there to hold your hand when things go wrong."

"Exactly!" Prim said, just as she walked into the room, wearing what I could only assume was her new Black Widow 'outfit' and carrying a large bag over her shoulder. She'd previously just been wearing a simple black one-piece suit, but I'd heard rumours that she was working with the prep team to create a more elaborate look, and this was clearly the result; while still predominately black, her costume now included silver shoulder-pads with red edges, red edges on her black boots, and a black eye-mask with red lenses. "You can do the job, Katniss; look at everything you've done so far!"

"Who-?" Clarke and Anya said, looking at Prim in surprise.

"Call me Black Widow," Prim interjected, smiling at the two new women with her usual warm manner. "I'm the Avengers' stealth expert and field medic; I tend not to get involved in the _fights_ as such at the moment, so I was helping keep an eye on the patients while you were all training."

"You're the _medic_?" Clarke said, looking at my sister incredulously. "You're-"

"She's been training since she was very young; she knows what she's doing," I interjected, looking firmly at Clarke before I turned back to look at Steve. "Seriously, are you _sure_ I should be the one handling this? This isn't like our usual talks; none of these people will have any reason to respect me-"

"You're the Mockingjay," Steve said firmly. " _Make_ them respect you."

There was nothing else I could say to that except to nod in acknowledgement of my mentor's argument.

I'd had the advantage of an existing reputation so far, but if I wanted to prove myself as a leader, I had to make an impression on people who didn't know about that reputation, rather than just using it all the time.

"Oh, Anya, Clarke?" Prim said, smiling at them as she slung the bag she'd been carrying onto the table. "I thought you might want these."

"What?" Anya asked, looking curiously at the bag as Prim opened it to pull out what looked like a one-piece purple swimsuit. "What is this?"

"Your uniform," Prim smiled politely at her as she tossed the outfit to Anya, followed by a pair of dark purple boots and sleeveless gloves. "Some of the team salvaged some material from President Snow's clothes after his death; he had this weird fabric that could slightly change its shape as he did, so I helped the prep team modify it to fit you better-"

"And leave me _this_ exposed?" Anya asked sceptically, as she held the suit in front of her.

"Well… it's not like you're going to _need_ much clothing- from what I've seen of the other Hulks in archived footage, they're pretty much bulletproof- and it covers everything essential; leaving your arms and legs exposed like that just made it easier to focus on making sure it fits your main body," Prim explained, her expression briefly becoming awkward before she turned to look at Clarke with a new smile. "Beetee and the team are still making sure the harness is in working condition after all these years, but I _have_ been able to put together the rest of your suit."

"And… this is mine?" Clarke asked, looking sceptically at another uniform as she removed it from the bag, revealing black gloves and a sleeveless black top with gold edges, as well as a black helmet that covered the top of her head while leaving her hair exposed at the back. "Black and gold?"

"What; the wings are going to be gold, and it's Katniss's colours-" Prim began.

"And it looks good for her, but I'm _not_ Mockingjay," Clarke said, looking firmly at Prim before she turned to look awkwardly at Steve. "Actually, I… well, last night, I had a bit of time to think about all this, and I… well, I had a couple of ideas myself…"

"You did?" Steve asked, looking curiously at Clarke. "What were you thinking?"

"Well, making the wings gold works, but for the main costume… could it be blue?" Clarke asked, actually looking embarrassed as she made the request.

"Blue?" Johanna asked, looking at Clarke with a slight smile as she indicated Steve. "As in, blue in the same shade as this guy's old costume?"

"And… maybe a few stars somewhere?" Clarke continued, before she looked over at Steve. "I mean, I get that you can't exactly be 'Captain America' any more, and I'm not saying _I_ should call myself that either- Falcon sounds great as a code-name, trust me- but I just… well…"

"You want to make it clear that you're not trying to be _me_ either," I said, looking at the other woman with a new sense of respect. "I can understand that."

"I get that too," Peeta said, smiling slightly at Clarke. "I may wear Iron Man's armour, but

I've been giving it some paint work to distinguish my armour from what Tony Stark used back in the old days; I don't want people to think I'm trying to be the new him."

"You'd need to be a lot more impulsive and a hell of a bigger flirt to be _that_ guy," Johanna noted, chuckling at him as she indicated her arm. "Hey, he may have given me this, but the guy _was_ a bit of a creep."

"He was also an Avenger," Steve interjected, glaring over at Johanna. "We were flawed, but we _are_ heroes; just because we stumble sometimes doesn't mean we don't deserve a chance."

"Getting back to the original topic, if colour's your main concern, don't worry about it; I'm sure that my team can amend _that_ easily enough," I smiled at Clarke, glad to see her willingness to take a more active role in the team. "It's not like working with some of the make-up jobs we've had to perform during the Games; we've spent months making sure they create something tasteful rather than just something that makes a vivid impression."

"So… it won't take long?" Clarke asked anxiously.

"So long as you keep working on Beetee's training program, I see no reason why we shouldn't be ready to leave for the Ark tomorrow," Finnick smiled. "Trust me, I've spent enough time with those teams to know what they can do; give them something to work with and you'll be amazed what they can do."

"In the meantime," Steve said, looking between our two new members with a smile, "see if you can get in one last evening of practise before we move out; if we're going to make an impression on the Ark, I want to make the best possible impact that we can."

It was a weak excuse to delay our trip to the Ark, but now that I knew I was taking point for this encounter, I wanted to be sure I knew what I was going to say…

* * *

AN 2: Coming up next, the Avengers will travel to the Ark, and we see how things unfolded for the Grounders and the Ark without Clarke's presence (She'll only have been absent for the equivalent of the next couple of episodes after her and Anya's escape, but even the little things can have consequences)…


	9. The Falcon and the Bridge

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: A few scenes here were partially written by/inspired by my colleague, David Knight, and I thank him for his input

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

When she woke up to see her new outfit lying on the chair beside her bed, still wearing her own clothes, Clarke wasn't sure if she should be impressed or disturbed at the fact that someone had managed to do that without waking her up.

On the one hand, after hearing so many stories about the Avengers from Callie as she was growing up, she was beyond amazed at the revelation that not only were the Avengers now active again, but actually wanted her as a _member_ … but on the other hand, she had to wonder if she was really ready for it.

So far, she hadn't really _done_ anything since arriving on Earth apart from try to set up a peace treaty that hadn't worked out, escape from a 'prison' that hadn't been expecting that kind of escape, and perform a few limited operations that she'd only done because nobody else was available to do it. She might have 'won' in the sense that she was alive and free right now, but the idea that she was being considered as a valid member for the new version of 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes'…

That would have been intimidating even _before_ everything Callie had speculated about her the previous night, when she'd gone to visit her 'adopted aunt' after the last meeting.

* * *

 _Looking around the apart_ _ment that Callie had been living in since being recovered by the Avengers, Clarke had to admit that she found it a very interesting look. It wasn't that different from the quarters she had lived in with her family in the Ark, except that it was made of stone, brick and wood rather than just metal and steel._

 _Of course, the real difference was the windows, displaying views of trees and assorted greenery that she had never had on the Ark._

"And it looks to be as if the five day forecast for the Capital will be cool in the high 60s _," an unfamiliar voice suddenly said. "_ Which is a godsend for those working on the ongoing reconstruction efforts _…"_

 _Turning in the direction of the voice, Clarke was amazed to see a screen displaying a man sitting behind what had to be a news desk, unfamiliar maps on the wall behind him as he spoke._

" _Is that…?" she began._

" _Feels different, doesn't it_ _?" Callie said, smiling at her in understanding as she held what looked like a remote. "Watching it live instead of watching the same recording over and over again?"_

 _Clarke was about to respond when Callie suddenly changed the channel, the screen shifting from the news broadcast to what looked like a baseball game. "There's more?"_

" _They have about forty different channels; it's small compared to having thousands before the wars, and a few of them are just there rather than actually broadcasting anything, but it's still impressive by our standards," Callie replied, as she headed over to a refrigerator. "I actually thought we might do something straight out of a chick flick. I know you don't like those films all that much, but I think you might like this, since you've never had it before."_

" _Had what?" Clarke asked, as Callie turned around to face her with a smile and two plastic cartons in her hands._

" _Eat ice cream and talk," Callie said, handing Clarke one of the cartons and a metal spoon. "It's just vanilla, but I figure that's a good flavour to start with while you're working out what you like."_

" _Thanks," Clarke said, taking the spoon and starting to eat, enjoying the coldness of the food for a moment- after water, she hadn't had anything cool since coming down to Earth- before she looked curiously at Callie. "So, what was that… announcer… talking about when he mentioned 'reconstruction efforts'?"_

" _I haven't heard the full story yet, but from what I picked up, it…" Callie said, looking awkwardly at her friend's daughter for a moment before she finished. "Well, it sounds like_ _the Avengers' debut was just last year, when they defeated the dictator who'd been ruling this country for the better part of the last century."_

"Century _?" Clarke repeated._

" _He apparently had some kind of 'powers' himself, but I haven't been able to ask them for more specifics," Callie explained, her expression grim before she continued her story. "Anyway, from what I've heard, for several years before now, this part of the country was ruled by a twisted dictatorship that kept the population divided into twelve districts, each one producing a certain resource such as fish, power or coal, and had them each send two teenagers each year to participate in a modern gladiator-style fight to the death."_

" _Excuse me?" Clarke asked, looking sharply at Callie. "Gladiators? Like in Ancient Rome?"_

" _With modern updates and in a broader field, but the analogy sounds appropriate from what I've heard," Callie explained. "Mockingjay and the new Iron Man were the victors of the last Games when they managed to put the gamemakers in a difficult position, and apparently the Mariner and Bloodaxe were victors of past Games as well."_

" _They were chosen because they won these… Games?"_

" _Captain Rogers made it clear that he chose them from several other Victors because they won for the right reasons," Callie said, understanding Clarke's apprehension. "They competed in the Games, but they didn't let the Games control everything they did afterwards. When they had a chance to fight for what mattered, they all stood up and fought; actually, Mockingjay triggered the revolution against the dictator when she volunteered for the Games to save her sister from competing."_

" _Her sister… the Black Widow?" Clarke asked, recalling a comment made during her training as well as some of the stories about the original Avenger with that name; the first Black Widow hadn't made the same solo impression as most of the male Avengers, but a few stories of her past missions had been revealed over the decades since the Avengers fell._

" _She's mainly the team's field medic, and even that's only when Mockingjay's sure that she won't be in danger," Callie said, smiling slightly at some memory. "I've spent some time talking with her in the infirmary; her sister might accept that she's growing up, but she's still trying to keep her safe."_

" _Are all siblings like that?" Clarke wondered, suddenly recalling all the lengths Bellamy had gone to while trying to help Octavia since we'd all arrived on the ground._

" _It varies," Callie smiled, before she looked at Clarke with a more serious manner. "The point I'm trying to make, Clarke, is that these people have been active for almost a year according to the stories I've heard, and they've kept their membership as it was since they became a team; they wouldn't offer you a place among them if they didn't feel you were worth it."_

 _There was a lot more that Clarke wanted to say to that statement, but for the moment, she just let herself take in the compliment and focus on that._

" _You know," Callie continued, indicating the screen displaying the same sports game, "I look at this, this world that we find ourselves in… and I can't help but wonder how badly our people may take to it."_

" _How badly?" Clarke asked incredulously. "We've all been stuck on the Ark wanting to get to the ground for the last century; how could anyone be anything but happy?"_

" _Clarke," Callie said, the sombre expression on her face cutting through Clarke's mood better than any words, "what has been the one thought driving our people, allowing us to commit the acts we did justify our survival? That we, the last of humanity, can bring civilization back to the Earth."_

 _Clarke knew those words all too well. It's how they rationalized the Purge, the sending to the Ground... the Floating of her father... That and so much more, even before life support had started failing. It was all because they believed they were the very last of humanity and their mission, the reason they were alive, was to return to Earth and restart civilization once it had 'healed' from the nuclear wars. That was what every child had drilled into their minds; that everything they did on the Ark was to service that goal one day._

 _Callie waited until she saw that Clarke had processed what she had said and started speaking again. "It was the belief that we were the absolute last, that we would bring civilization back to a desolate, barren world, that sustained all the generations that came before you on the Ark, Clarke. You shattered that when you told us about the Grounders, yet many still had hope because even if we had to share Earth, we could believe that we were still bringing civilization back."_

" _And yet we've got a civilization here already," Clark said. Everything she had seen from the Avengers already spoke to a civilization that was equal if not more advanced than that of the Ark._

" _I don't know how many of us are left from the Ark, but right now they're probably clinging to their dreams because it's all they have. And in spite of everything we've seen so far about what marvels they have here…"_

" _You don't think our people will take well to the differences?" Clarke asked_ _._

" _We've got at least two different social cultures, to say nothing of what is going on with those 'Grounders' of yours, and now there's the people from Mount Weather to take into account along with whatever other people are still living on the planet," Callie said, sighing slightly before she looked at Clarke. "Whatever way I look at it, the only way to avoid trouble… is if there's something… or rather, someone… that can bridge the gaps between the two."_

 _Clarke didn't say anything, only looking at the sly smile on Callie's face before it dawned upon her. "Me? You think I'm your bridge?" She shook her head. "I tried to negotiate peace between us and the Grounders and it failed..."_

" _From what I hear, there was lack of trust on all sides, and yet you managed to survive the mistakes that came about and even help the rest of the kids survive," Callie returned. "Clarke, you've met with the leaders of so many factions on this new Earth- even if Mockingjay and Captain Rogers define themselves as representatives of their culture rather than leaders- and you're still here. You understand them more intimately than anyone. If that doesn't fit the description of a bridge, I don't know what will."_

" _But… will anyone_ listen _to me?" Clarke asked, suddenly recalling another fear she wasn't entirely ready to voice to anyone else. "I mean, I tried to keep Mom up-to-date with whatever was going on here, but when we actually_ meet _again, I just… I think…"_

" _You think she'll still treat you like a child," Callie finished for her, nodding in understanding as she reached up and unclipped a silver chain from around her neck, passing it to Clarke so that she could see the ornate ring attached to it. "Here."_

" _What's this?" Clarke asked, taking the chain and looking at it curiously._

" _Something that your mother and Marcus will both recognise as mine," Callie smiled. "I'll be staying here to keep an eye on the other Ark survivors from my section, but if they start thinking you've been brainwashed or anything stupid like that, show them that ring and they'll understand that I'm alive and I have faith in you."_

 _It was another small gesture in the grand scheme of things, but it was also a gesture that Clarke greatly appreciated._

* * *

Shaking off those memories, Clarke looked at the costume lying beside her bed once again, before she glanced at her watch. Based on what Mockingjay and Captain America had told her and the other Avengers once the last training session had concluded, she only had half an hour to get dressed before the Avengers left to make contact with the largest intact Ark fragment, so she had to get moving if she didn't want to get left behind.

Even if she had her doubts about the decision to put her on the team, Clarke was here to represent her people; she couldn't reject that responsibility, no matter how much she doubted her abilities.

Making her decision, Clarke got out of bed and shrugged off her jacket as she began to put on her new suit; whatever she felt about her abilities as an Avenger, she had the suit, she had her responsibilities to her people, and she was going to use the suit and do what she could to live up to her new responsibilities until she fell or they actually asked her to leave the team.

* * *

When Clarke emerged from her room, she was glad to see that the other Avengers were already waiting for her in the hovercraft hanger, each of them clearly impressed with her new look. While the original outfit offered to her yesterday had just been a sleeveless black top with gold edging, the new version was a deep blue in colour and included short sleeves that went up to her elbows, with leather knee guards and boots reaching up to just below her knees on her legs. There was a white diamond on either side of her chest, with a red falcon in a similar style to the old SHIELD logo inside it, along with a deep white star on her front just below her neck. The 'A' that had been used as the original Avengers' logo was proudly displayed on her shoulderguards, and she wore blue fingerless gloves with a white star on the top of her hands, along with red bracers at her wrists. The upper half of her head was covered by a blue mask that only exposed her mouth, her hair tied back in a ponytail, and two large handguns hung at her sides.

" _Nice_ ," Johanna nodded in approval. "Kick-ass suit while letting you look good."

"That is important?" Anya asked, looking sceptically over at the one-armed woman.

"Hey!" Clarke said, realising in surprise that Anya was just wearing a brown leather jacket and trousers rather than the purple suit she'd been given yesterday. "What happened to your uniform?"

"It was felt that it would be less… intimidating… to your people if I arrive like this," Anya explained, glaring briefly over at Mockingjay even if she seemed to accept the decision. "I am wearing that suit under these clothes, but I will be attending the first meeting like this."

"I though you wanted to make a dramatic impression?" Clarke noted as she turned to her new 'leader'.

"Dramatic, yes, but I don't want to intimidate anyone," Katniss clarified. "That's why Peeta and Prim will be staying here while we head to the Ark; we need to establish what we can offer and that we can work with your people, without looking like we're trying to intimidate them into cooperation."

"And you're sure you want _me_ along for that?" Johanna asked with a sarcastic smile as she held out her axe.

"Your arm shows that we're not just killers," Katniss said. "Anyone can kill, but we wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of creating that arm for you if we didn't want _you_ to stay around."

"Quite," Finnick smiled in agreement at Katniss's statement. "After all, there's got to be easier people to be on a team with than you."

"Want to pay for that next training session?" Johanna asked teasingly even as she adjusted her grip on the axe.

"Shutting up now," Finnick said in understanding.

"We should go," Anya said, glaring at the other Avengers. "If we are to defeat the Mountain Men, the sooner we take action the better."

"Right," Katniss said, looking apprehensively at the new Hulk before she turned back to the hovercraft behind them. "Let's go."

As Johanna, Finnick and Anya headed into the hovercraft, Katniss exchanged a brief handshake with Clarke before she turned to look at Peeta, who was standing off to the side of the hanger with Prim.

"Do what you can," she said to the remaining members of the team. "The more we know about whatever's in that mountain, and the better shape those Ark residents are in when we have to take them back, the better."

"They're doing fine," Prim smiled at her sister.

"And Beetee and I will do what we can on hacking those networks," Peeta confirmed. "They might have experience, but they probably aren't even aware that we're here; we'll get something eventually."

"Good luck," Katniss said, before she turned around to join Clarke and the others in the hovercraft, nodding at Finnick as he sat at the controls. "Let's go."

As the hovercraft took off, Clarke couldn't resist the urge to keep checking her new suit, making sure she knew where all the controls and buckles were in preparation for whatever might be about to happen.

She'd training in that VR simulation system as much as she could, but there was still only so much she could do without actually taking this thing into the air on her own…

God, she hoped she was ready for this.


	10. Mockingjay in the Ark

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Our current situation was relatively unprecedented, but in a strange way, I was actually enjoying the mess we were in so far.

As much as I had initially feared having to make an impression on the former residents of the Ark on my own, the more time I spent talking with Callie, Clarke and Anya, the more comfortable I felt at the thought of what I was about to do. My past experiences at dealing with leaders had all been based around their knowledge of my reputation as the Mockingjay, but I'd gone up against a few people who still regarded me as little more than the frightened girl playing the Capitol's game because she didn't know what else to do; if I could make them actually surrender to me just by shooting a few arrows and moving the shield around, I could make these people respect the Mockingjay as a leader.

Looking around at my team, I just hoped that Johanna and Finnick would manage to keep Anya 'under control'. She might respect our knowledge of her transformation enough to agree to follow my orders, but considering that we were taking her into the heart of what could be considered 'enemy territory', it was always possible that one of the Ark soldiers would do something that could provoke a transformation.

That was the main reason why I'd decided that Clarke and I would be the first ones to make contact. With Clarke's suit making her an ideal choice for taking me in to talk to the Ark on our own, it had been decided that she and I would fly in to lay the groundwork for our plan to explain the danger posed by Mount Weather before we brought in the hovercraft and the rest of the team. Bringing in the hovercraft itself without any explanation could have inspired panic, but just two people coming in to talk, even if we were flying, should inspire less concern.

Looking over at my immediate partner, I noticed that Clarke's hands kept alternating between checking her weapons and her suit's various buckles to fingering a silver chain she'd started wearing around her neck, but considering how I'd occasionally 'fiddled' with my Mockingjay pin in the field, I wasn't going to criticise anyone for wanting contact with a token of any sort.

So long as she remained calm when we were talking to her people…

"We're coming in," Finnick said, glancing back at me from his position in the pilot's seat. "Based on the trajectory the old guy gave us, and what this thing's picking up, we've got a very large concentration of metal ahead that's got to be the Ark fragment."

"Here's hoping it's the one we're looking for," I said, as I reached up to check my helmet one last time; I alternated between wearing it and not wearing it in the field as it could get uncomfortable after long periods, but on this occasion it seemed like the best way to conceal my age and make a better first impression.

With that done, I stood up and glanced over at Clarke.

"Ready?" I asked, even as I made sure that my bow, quiver and shield were all sitting comfortably on my back.

"Ready as I'll ever be," my newest teammate replied, reaching up to tap a switch on the side of her helmet that activated her 'flight lenses'; the glasses were apparently too complex for her to keep them active all the time on the ground, but she'd need them in the air to help her process what she was doing or where she was going in the suit. With that done, the two of us walked over to the nearest door as Finnick lowered the craft slightly, Clarke taking up position behind me as Johanna and Anya looked at us.

"Good luck," Johanna said, giving me a brief salute with her artificial arm.

"Always," I replied, before Clarke grabbed me under my arms and leapt out of the open hatch, the Falcon's wings spreading as the jets activated. As we were sent hurtling through the air, I kept my eyes closed for the first few moments until I felt the jetpack slow down to a point where the wind felt more tolerable.

Taking a peak at my immediate surroundings, I took a moment to appreciate the trees spread out before us- if flight was this incredible, I was surprised that Peeta spent as much time on the ground as Iron Man as he did- before I registered our destination, quickly becoming amazed at the sheer scale of the crash-site ahead of us for several reasons. Callie had told me that her 'fragment' of the Ark was comparatively small, but it was only now that I fully appreciated what she meant. The structure I was looking at was clearly either damaged or only half-built, given the various exposed girders and metal sticking out of the top, and their 'fence' consisted of barbed wire and a few large pieces of metal that had clearly been taken from the main ship, but considering that it must have crashed down only a few days ago, the residents had clearly gone to great lengths to make it habitable.

"Drop me in the middle of the fence!" I called up to Clarke as we approached our destination. "Keep going and circle back; I'll make the introductions before you land!"

"Are you sure?" Clarke called back down to me, only just audible over the roaring wind.

"Trust me!" I smiled back, reaching back to take hold of one of the handles on my shield. "And… _now_!"

Moving my shield below me as Clarke released her grip, I hurtled towards the ground shield-first, striking my target in the middle of the open area before the crash, quickly vaulting upwards to land on my feet in front of the assorted soldiers, all of whom were staring incredulously at me.

"Hello," I said, looking around at the assembled soldiers with a slight smile. "I'm Mockingjay; I'd like to speak to Abigail Griffin?"

The name prompted a few moments of anxious discussion among the people around me, until a woman a few years older than Callie stepped forward, her face and clothing stained with dirt but with an authoritative manner about her.

"I'm Abigail Griffin," she said grimly. "And… you are?"

"If you'll just wait a moment, I believe that my colleague will make introductions easier," I said, glancing upwards as I heard the jetpack's engines coming in towards us.

"Your…?" Abigail began, before she followed my gaze to see Clarke heading towards us, a blue-and-red dot that rapidly became clearer as it drew closer. In a matter of seconds, the newest Avenger was directly above my position as she came to an abrupt halt and lowered herself to the ground, wings folding into the jetpack as she looked at the older woman.

"Hey Mom," Clarke said, keeping her voice low as she addressed her mother.

"…Clarke?" Abigail said, staring at Clarke in obvious shock before she turned to me. "What… how…?"

"That's… a long story, Mom," Clarke said, looking uncertainly at her mother. "Could we just… talk to the Chancellor about this?"

Despite her initial shock, the other woman actually smiled at that news.

"Well," she shrugged awkwardly at Clarke and I, "this makes it easier; _I'm_ the Chancellor."

"You?" Clarke and I said simultaneously.

"Marcus… had to go out and deal with things; I'm acting as Chancellor until he gets back," Abigail said, before she turned to lead the two of us into the Ark. After exchanging a glance with Clarke, the two of us walked after Abigail for a few moments until we arrived in a fair-sized room with a battered table in it.

"This room survived?" Clarke asked, looking at the room in surprise.

"It was fairly contained when the crash happened; most of the exterior rooms took the worst of the damage," Abigail said, before she sat down at the end of the table and looked at me. "So… who are you?"

"Like I said, I'm Mockingjay," I said, smiling slightly at Abigail as I sat at the other end of the table, Clarke taking up a similar position slightly between Abigail and I even as I noted that she was sitting slightly closer to me than her own mother. "I'm the leader of the Avengers-"

"The _Avengers_?" Abigail said, looking incredulously at me. "But… I mean, we heard about the Grounders-"

"It turns out that the Grounders are just the survivors of the heaviest nuclear bombardment in the initial wars," Clarke explained, looking grimly at her mother as she explained what she'd learned from us. "There's at least one more major civilisation here, but this area's been relatively ignored by them for the last century or so because…"

"Because it was ruled by a near-immortal, virtually indestructible psychopath who thought that he could justify turning twelve districts into elaborate players in his own twisted Games by arguing to himself that he was proving that _they_ were the monsters people had always claimed he was," I interjected; we might have filled Clarke in on the essentials of our recent history, but it was clearly still difficult for her to process the full scale of what we'd been dealing with. "It was only a couple of years ago that our mentor decided it was time to strike back, recruiting me and a few of my… allies to become a new team of Avengers; we killed the dictator a few months ago and since then we've been focused on rebuilding some kind of society to replace what came before."

"What?" Abigail said, looking at me in shock. "Who was… why-?"

"Believe me, you don't want to know what he was capable of long-term," I said, my expression cold as I remembered what Snow had said in our brief conversation before the Victory Tour and the results of my final stand against him with the rest of the Avengers. "The point is that we haven't really had reason to pay much attention to this part of the continent since we killed him, but when the Ark crashed down, we were able to rescue a few survivors from another component."

"Callie was with them," Clarke said, smiling at her mother as she reached down her top and pulled out the silver chain with the ring on it. "She gave me this."

"Callie's alive?" Abigail said, looking at her daughter in surprise.

"She's back at the Avengers' compound, keeping an eye on the other survivors," I put in. "My sister and mother are helping with the treatment, but we have more… urgent issues to discuss right now."

"Like what?" Abigail asked.

"It turns out that Mount Weather isn't as uninhabited as we thought it was," Clarke continued, her tone grim as she looked at her mother. "A group of people hid in there when the nuclear bombs were unleashed, and they were able to survive in there at first, but after the excess radiation died down… well, they've spent so long underground in a secure environment that they can't even step outside the base because they just can't cope with even the residual background radiation out here."

"From what Clarke observed while she was in Mount Weather, the residents of the mountain have been abducting the tribe you know as 'Grounders' and taking their blood in order to help them cope when outside the mountain," I continued. "They've been focusing on the Grounders so far, and I don't think they even know we're out here- some of my technical allies are taking a look at the computer systems and don't think they have any kind of wider network access- but from what Clarke learned from their president, it's unlikely they'll be satisfied with that for long."

"What?" Abigail asked sharply.

"We've been living in space for the last century," Clarke said grimly. "According to President Wallace, our bodies are better equipped to deal with radiation than even the Grounders' because we've been exposed to more extreme radiation out of the atmosphere. He seemed friendly enough at the time…"

"But if they're willing to bleed the Grounders, how long are they going to leave the rest of the 100 alone?" Abigail finished for Clarke and I, looking grimly between us before her gaze focused on me. "But that doesn't explain why you've recruited my daughter onto your team."

"We rescued her and Anya while they were escaping," I said grimly. "If we're going to help your people, my mentor and I thought that it would be best to bring in a few additional assets; I concluded that Clarke has the spirit of an Avenger, and Anya… well, things are more straightforward."

"I've spent the last couple of days training with this harness, and the rest of the team are satisfied with what I can do," Clarke explained as she indicated her jet-pack.

"And… Anya?" Abigail asked, looking uncertainly at Clarke. "Who's that?"

"She was… the Grounder general for the tribe in our area," Clarke explained awkwardly.

"What?" Abigail looked between Clarke and I in shock. "You let a _Grounder_ -?"

"Things with Anya are… complicated," Clarke said, looking uncomfortable for a moment before she focused on continuing her story. "The point is that the Avengers have allowed Anya and I to join them to save our people from the Mountain, but we're going to need the Ark and the Grounders if we're going to pull that off-"

"Hold on, if you have a whole civilisation-?"

"Right now, Mount Weather has no reason to think that they have anything more to deal with than whoever survived the Ark and the usual group of Grounders," I interjected, anticipating what Abigail was about to ask. "The other Avengers and I can participate in any kind of assault you might make against them, but if we bring in more troops, we run the risk of… provoking a larger assault."

"Larger?" Abigail and Clarke repeated in confusion.

"Nuclear weapons," I said grimly. "Mount Weather still had some nuclear missiles when the computer networks went down; if they still have any available, it might not take much for them to launch one against any potential opposition."

"In other words, we fight so that you don't have to?" Abigail asked.

" _We_ fight _with_ you to protect our people," I corrected, grateful that I wouldn't have to repeat Coin's arguments about why we had to do things her way despite our own beliefs. "If we just wanted to keep our people safe, we wouldn't be getting involved in this at all; we're here to help you because it's the right thing to do."

I stared grimly at Abigail for a few moments to make sure she understood my statement, and then sat back to stare at her. "Now then, while we're here, I don't suppose you know what happened to the rest of Clarke's group? She reported only forty-seven others in Mount Weather, and I get that there was a fight before Mount Weather's forces showed up, but they couldn't have lost _everyone_."

"Well… some of them may have escaped to other areas…" Abigail shrugged awkwardly.

"But you know where _some_ of them are," Clarke said, looking at her mother with a new intensity. "Who?"

"…Finn and John Murphy have been out looking for you for the last few days," Abigail said after a few moments. "The Blakes and Raven were with them when they went out the first time; they came back from their own search this morning with a survivor from another crash segment, but they went out again a short while ago to try again-"

"And you didn't send anyone with them?" Clarke asked, looking at her mother in a very pointed manner. "You let them leave on their _own_?"

"I've got to focus on consolidating our own position, Clarke; I can't spare trained soldiers-"

"In other words, we weren't _important_ enough," Clarke countered, glaring at her mother even as she remained sitting. "We've been missing since you landed here, and the priority is still _your_ agenda-"

"If this is about your father-"

"This is about you choosing the so-called 'greater good' over what matters; we can't just-!"

"Look," I said, standing up to glare between the two Griffins, "we don't have time to argue about what anyone should and shouldn't have done; if there are other members of Clarke's group out there looking for her, we need to find them and get them back before anyone does something stupid."

"What makes you think-?" Abigail began.

"Because people do stupid things when they're desperate," I said firmly. "And speaking as the woman who entered a competition where I had a less than one-in-twenty-four chance of dying just to save my sister, when you're dealing with someone you love in peril, you can become _very_ desperate."

With that statement made, I reached up to my helmet and activated my comlink with the hovercraft. "Mariner, prepare for pick-up; we have to find a search-party sent out a few days ago before everything goes _really_ wrong."

" _Search party_?" Finnick repeated at the other end of the line. " _What are you_ -?"

"We can work out the specifics once Falcon and I are back on board," I said, already falling back into Steve's insistence on the use of codenames only in the field. "The important thing is to track down Clarke's allies before anyone does something they'll regret; once you've picked us up, She-Hulk can help us work out where to go next."

Maybe I was acting on impulse, but after all the time that Steve had told me to trust my instincts, right now there was no time to question my gut instinct; if Clarke was anything like me- and her distaste for her mother's focus on the 'greater good' hinted at that kind of mentality- she wasn't going to be in any shape to take action until she could be sure that everyone that we could account for was somewhere safe.

Glancing over at my new teammate, Clarke was already activating her harness as we emerged from the Ark to take us up into the air to rendezvous with the approaching hovercraft, her mind focused on our new goal.

I just hoped that we could find them before something went wrong…


	11. Dark Reunions

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: I have to make a few assumptions about geography to make this one work, but I hope that the result works as the Avengers meet more of the 100

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Only able to stare at the door of the conference room after Clarke and her new… friend?... had run out, Abby had no idea how she should feel about what had just taken place.

She'd already accepted the idea that Earth wasn't as abandoned and lifeless as she'd spent years believing it would be, ever since she received that first transmission from Clarke on the dropship, but learning that a few primitive tribes had survived the nuclear holocaust was completely different from learning that there was a civilisation down here that could recreate the _Avengers_ …

Granted, Abby had only seen Clarke and that woman who had introduced herself as 'Mockingjay'- and where had she come up with a name like that?- but Clarke's harness alone was evidence that there was more to Earth than the 'Grounders'; something that complex couldn't have survived this long without some kind of maintenance, and nobody would train a group on how to repair one thing and neglect everything else.

Still… if the Avengers had been reassembled for this new world she and the rest of the Ark had landed on…

What kind of threats were out there that necessitated a new team of Avengers to fight them?

And more importantly, even if Clarke was telling the truth about Mount Weather… once that issue was dealt with, would the Avengers help the Ark or the Grounders?

* * *

As Clarke carried her new team leader up into the hovercraft, her mind was already racing as she tried to work out what they could do next; the majority of the 'missing' members of the 100 might be trapped in Mount Weather, but if she could track down the Blakes, Murphy, Raven and Finn, that would at least give her something that she could actually _do_ right now.

Approaching the hovercraft, Clarke was briefly unnerved when only the small side-door was opened, but she quickly decided not to worry about that in favour of getting inside as promptly as possible. With Katniss still held in her arms, she adjusted the harness's jets and altered the wings with the controls on her palms before diving through the door, coming to a rapid halt on the ground as she dropped Katniss to the floor and quickly turned the jets off.

"Nice," Johanna nodded at her in approval. "Talk about turning on a dime."

"It's actually not too hard once you know how," Clarke said, deciding not to mention her various near-crashes in that VR simulation (which had only been 'near' because she kept getting pulled out before she could do anything that would have hurt her in real life).

"So what's up?" Finnick asked, turning from his position in the driving seat. "Negotiations not go well?"

"No, my mother seemed willing to listen, but we have a more immediate issue," Clarke explained urgently, before she turned to Anya. "We've got search parties out looking for me and the rest of my people who were in the dropship, and if they find one of your villages first, there's no telling what any could do; if they set out from here, can you tell us what a search party might find first?"

"You ask me to tell you where my people are-?"

"We are _asking_ you to help us find missing people before anyone does anything stupid," Katniss interjected, glaring firmly at Anya despite the fact that the Grounder leader could tear her apart with her bare hands if she changed. "You're one of the Avengers now, Anya; we're not going to ask you to go after anyone you care about, but in turn you need to trust that we won't ask you to do anything that compromises your ties to your people."

"That's the thing about Mockingjay," Johanna put in, smiling over at Anya in her usual sarcastic manner as the Grounder commander looked appraisingly at Katniss. "That whole righteous, save-everybody act gets under your skin even after you learn that it's not an act."

"I thought you agreed that I was team leader?" Katniss said, looking back at Johanna with a slightly teasing smile that seemed at odds with the nature of the conversation.

"Never said I didn't respect you; just saying it still gets me that you can be all that after all this," Johanna shrugged. "Hell, you killed Snow with an explosive arrow to the head and you're still willing to give Thor some of the credit."

"An explosive arrow?" Anya asked, looking at Clarke in an intrigued manner.

"To the _head_?" Clarke finished in shock. "Isn't that a bit-?"

"When he wanted to, Snow could turn into a Hulk state that was bigger than Anya and far stronger; hitting him that hard was the only way I was ever going to put him down for good," Katniss said firmly before she indicated Finnick while looking at Anya. "We can discuss the past later; right now, we need to know where we should be looking if we want to prevent any mistakes in the present."

Taking Katniss's point, Anya walked up to the front of the hovercraft as Finnick produced a straightforward map from the ship's links to the various remaining satellites; the old maps might have been rendered useless from the past bombardments, but they could still provide a starting-point to work out what might have survived from back then.

"So," Katniss asked, looking uncertainly at Clarke as they sat alongside each other in the back, "what was that you meant down there about your mother making decisions based on… the 'greater good'?"

Clarke sat in silence for a few moments, but finally nodded as she looked at her leader.

"My mother killed my father," she said grimly.

" _What_?" Katniss and Johanna yelled, looking sharply at the new Falcon.

"Why would she _do_ that?" Johanna asked. "I mean, I've heard of families disagreeing-"

"Callie told you about our life-support problems, right?" Clarke said.

"Yeah, she mentioned that Jake Griffin-" Katniss began, before she slapped her head in frustration at the realisation of what she'd just said. "Oh… that was your _father_ , right?"

"Yeah," Clarke nodded grimly.

"Callie told us that Jake was floated before he could tell anyone about his discovery that the life-support was about to fail…" Katniss said, looking uncertainly at Clarke. "And… your mother reported him before he could do it?"

"And I spent months thinking that my best friend was responsible because he decided that it was better for me to hate him instead of my mother," Clarke said grimly, staring out of the window for a moment before she sighed and looked back at her new team. "God… my father always liked telling me the stories of the Avengers; he'd never believe this…"

"You miss him," Katniss said, looking solemnly at the new Falcon. "Believe me, that's normal no matter how it happens."

"Hey, if you've got a screwed-up family, join the club," Johanna smiled over at Clarke. "My whole family were killed by that asshole Snow because I wouldn't play his games, Mockingjay lost her dad in a mining accident and her mom was a mess for a while afterwards, Mariner never mentions his parents, and Iron Man pretty much moved out as soon as he could because his mom's some kind of grade-A bitch."

"Ah," Clarke said.

"His mother is a what?" Anya asked, looking back at the other Avengers in confusion.

"She's… basically abusive," Katniss said, looking over at Anya; this topic wasn't something she felt comfortable discussing in depth without Peeta present, but if these two were going to join the team they needed to know more about their teammates. "It all dates back to this old issue where she was basically her husband's second choice after the girl he really loved married someone else, and she was at least rumoured to beat her sons for not measuring up to her standards."

"In Iron Man's defence, he never had much reasons to stand up and fight back before he ended up getting selected for the Games; he's more of a talker than a fighter most of the time," Finnick put in, turning around to join the conversation. "Anyway, we're coming up on the most likely danger zones that Miss Green here identified, so we thought you should be alerted."

"Thanks," Katniss nodded at Finnick, before she turned to look at Anya as the man now known as the Mariner tapped a few controls to activate a holographic map in the middle of the hovercraft. "Where should we go?"

"Here," Anya said, indicating two particular areas on the projected map. "There is a village in this area, and there is an underground construction of some sort in this part of the woods; if your people are searching in this area, it is likely that they will arrive at either of these places before they reach anywhere else."

"OK," Katniss said, taking an assessment of the map for a moment before making her decision. "Clarke, you and I need to get to the village as soon as possible; if anyone's there, we'd have a better chance of calming anyone down. Johanna, take Anya and investigate the car-park-"

"Car park?" Anya asked.

"According to some of the old maps, it looks like that underground construction you're talking about is most likely an old car park from before the wars," Katniss explained, quickly realising the need to elaborate given Anya's background. "Basically, people used to travel around in… machines… to go long distances in short times; this location is a public location for people to leave those… machines… when they weren't in use."

"I see," Anya said, her tone putting Katniss in mind of her own experiences at dealing with politics or the early days of the war; she probably had trouble even understanding the situation facing her right now, but she was choosing to focus on what she could handle.

"Good," Katniss nodded in approval at her new teammate before turning to Clarke. "We need to get going now; Finnick, take Anya and Johanna to the cark park area and then maintain a holding pattern until someone calls you."

"Check," Finnick smiled, opening the door as Clarke walked over to stand beside Katniss. "Good luck."

"Appreciated," Katniss nodded at Finnick before Clarke grabbed her under her arms and hurtled out of the ship, goggles snapping down to provide Clarke with a suitable flight-path to the identified village.

"As long as we're looking for them, could you clarify why your mother mentioned that the Blake _s_ are looking for you?" Katniss asked, after the hovercraft had vanished from her view following a few moments of flight. "I thought you said that the first wave were all juvenile delinquents and families only had one child-"

"Octavia was born and raised in secret until she was a teenager," Clarke explained. "Bellamy was her older brother who kept her secret, and made sure that he'd be assigned to the dropship when he learned about the plan to send the delinquents to Earth. They're good people, but… well, Bellamy has issues with authority, and Octavia's got her own share of issues."

"I can understand that," Katniss nodded grimly, as she saw a gap in the trees up ahead of them that was most likely the village they were looking for. "We're coming in; be ready-"

The sound of gunfire from the village prompted both of them to accelerate their approach, no words needing to be exchanged as Clarke boosted the speed of her jets. The gunfire ceased after a few moments, but Katniss had already reached back to place a hand on her shield as the two young women drew ever closer to their destination.

As soon as the village came within visual range, Katniss gave a thumbs-up to Clarke, who immediately released her grip on Mockingjay to send her hurtling towards the ground, aiming for what seemed to be the centre of the small village. As Clarke moved upwards before turning into a dive, she saw Katniss move the shield below her feet to take the impact with the ground, the young woman in black standing up to face two young men in the dark attire of the Hundred, a small gathering of people wearing the traditional brown leather of the Grounders behind her new leader. She could hear voices as she accelerated towards the ground, but the precise words were unclear as she drew closer, Clarke's eyes widening in shock as she saw one of the figures aiming a gun at Katniss.

"NO!" she yelled, adjusting her descent to strike the boy with the gun before he could fire it; even if Mockingjay's shield could withstand gunfire, Clarke wasn't ready to risk ricochet damage. Lowering her speed so that the impact wouldn't cripple whoever she was about to hit, Clarke struck him with enough force to throw him to the ground, pinning him down with her legs as she glared at the young man who'd been about to shoot the leader of the Avengers-

Her eyes widened in horror as she realised who she'd just attacked.

" _Finn_?" she said in shock.

"Who…?" Finn asked, looking uncertainly at her for a moment before his eyes widened in realisation. " _Clarke_! I found-"

Clarke slammed her hand over his mouth before he could finish that sentence, suddenly disgusted at the idea that he'd had anything to do with their current reunion.

As she turned around to see Katniss grabbing a gun from the other boy's arms, she wasn't sure what shocked her more; the fact that the other boy was Murphy, or the fact that he seemed to be just as shocked at what Finn had done as she was.

It had been so easy to consider Murphy the villain for what he tried to do to Wells and what he'd done after returning- he might have considered it self-defence, but he could have just knocked his guards out rather than kill them- but if even _he_ was shocked at what Finn had done…

Looking at Katniss, her new leader's grim expression as she studied the Grounders looking at them in shock was enough for Clarke to know that things had just become very complicated.

* * *

The more time she spent looking for the rest of the missing Hundred, the more Octavia had to wonder if they were worth all this effort.

When they'd spotted a small 'patrol' of Reapers coming towards them, she and Bellamy had managed to hide after diving through an old door that had been nearly hidden by the plans growing over it, but they'd been searching this dark area for a few minutes already and hadn't even seen a sign of another way out. She supposed it was academically fascinating to see all this stuff that had survived the nuclear holocaust, and she'd even grabbed what looked like some kind of radio so that she could see what passed for music back in the day, but that didn't mean she wanted to have to stay down here.

God… it seemed like every time she thought she had some stability, it got cut out from under her. She'd appreciated Bellamy's original efforts to take her out of the room, even if it had resulted in her arrest when things became confusing, but since then she'd been from the cells to the dropship to what was left of the Ark and she still had no idea what was going to happen to them all next. If she could just find somewhere _comfortable_ …

The sound of something moving off to the side distracted her train of thought, Bellamy turning his gun in that direction while Octavia clutched her knife and pistol. As soon as the feral expression of the first man came into clear view, Bellamy was firing his gun at the Reaper, leaving Octavia to take a quick shot at the other men approaching. With her brother carrying the only flashlight, she wasn't able to get a clear view of her targets, but it was enough for her to be sure of hitting them-

As she saw something familiar in the manner of the fourth member of the approaching Reaper 'party', Octavia froze in horror even as her brother shot at the two Reapers she'd just put down.

It couldn't be…

Then Bellamy turned his light and gun directly on to the last Reaper standing, and it was confirmed to be Lincoln.

"NO!" Octavia yelled, instinctively forcing Bellamy's gun upwards so that the bullets hit the ceiling rather than Lincoln. To his credit, her brother stopped firing as soon as he registered who he'd been about to shoot, but that didn't help them as Lincoln lunged forward, grabbing Bellamy's gun and throwing it away before the elder Blake could try and fire something else.

Octavia still had her own pistol and knife, but she couldn't think of anything she could do with them that wouldn't just kill Lincoln; she had no idea what had turned him into this, but there had to be a way out of this that left all three of them alive-

Before she could start to panic, someone suddenly dived into Lincoln from the side, knocking him to the ground with a force so sudden that Octavia was almost shocked _not_ to hear something crack. As she turned to look at her converted… whatever Lincoln was to her… she was momentarily relieved to see him getting back to his feet before she remembered what he had become, only for their mysterious rescuer to punch Lincoln with such force that he literally flew through the air before hitting one of the abandoned cars.

"WAIT!" Octavia yelled, only to be shocked when their 'saviour' turned around and revealed herself to be Anya, the Grounder leader who'd attacked them at the dropship.

" _You_?" Bellamy said, voicing her thoughts as he glared at Anya. "What are _you_ doing saving _us_?"

"My duty," Anya said, her tone cold as she indicated Lincoln. "Just as it is my duty to eliminate him."

"What?" Octavia said, confusion shifting to horror. "No, you can't-!"

"There is no other way," Anya said, turning back to walk towards Lincoln in a purposeful manner. Lost for anything else to do, Octavia ran forwards and leapt onto Anya's back, only to be grabbed by her shirt and hurled to the ground in a single motion. As she struck the ground, Octavia could only look up at Anya in shock-

Was it her imagination, or did Anya look like she was turning _green_ in the torchlight?

Before Octavia had time to take in what had just happened, she was given something else to think about when an unfamiliar figure stepped in, dressed mostly in black apart from what Octavia initially assumed was a gleaming silver glove, holding an axe with a handle that was at least as long as its wielder and a blade the size of her head.

"Can we talk about this before we do anything to piss off a girl desperate enough to plead for a guy's life in that state?" the strange woman asked, glaring at the Grounder leader as she held the large axe to her neck. "And before you start going green, you should know that this axe is probably one of the few things on the planet that can actually cut you, and I'm uniquely qualified to make sure that it would hurt you at the same time."

For a moment, the two women stared at each other intently, but eventually Anya stepped back from the axe.

"We have never found a cure for this other than death," she said, still staring at the woman with the axe.

"No offence, but considering what you've been working with, there are other reasons for that kind of track record," the unfamiliar woman countered, before she turned to grin at the Blakes in a manner that Octavia wasn't sure if she should find disturbing or comforting. "By the way, I'm Bloodaxe; I take it you've met She-Hulk?"

"She-Hulk?" Bellamy and Octavia repeated incredulously.

"As in… the Hulk?" Octavia asked uncertainly. "As in the _Avengers_?"

"You're looking at us," the self-titled 'Bloodaxe' smiled at the Blakes. "Granted, Greenie here's new, but-"

"Oh, come _on_ ; the _Avengers_?" Bellamy practically spat as he looked between the two women. "Those screw-ups couldn't stop the holocaust-"

"Shit happens," Bloodaxe stated, her axe shifting to point at Bellamy while her other hand went to her waist, where Octavia only now realised she had two smaller axes strapped to her thighs. "The originals had their issues, but Mockingjay's made it clear they failed because of extremely exceptional circumstances; we've had a good track record so far, and we're not about to break it."

"So… you're real?" Octavia asked, unable to stop herself smiling as she remembered all the times she'd begged Bellamy to 'play Avengers' when they were children, with her sneaking around their quarters pretending to be the Black Widow while Bellamy acted as one of the other Avengers or even played a villain for her to 'fight'. "The Avengers are back?"

"Oh yeah," Bloodaxe smiled, spinning her large axe in her hand in a manner that helped Octavia realise that what she'd taken as a glove was actually some kind of artificial limb before their saviour turned her attention back to Lincoln. "In the meantime, we've got a few things to deal with even before we get to this guy, so let's get him secured and work out where we're going from here."

This woman wasn't like the Avengers Octavia had heard so many stories about growing up, but as she watched this woman walk over to Lincoln to look him over before pulling him to his feet with her metal arm, she had a feeling that she was going to enjoy learning more about the 'new' team…


	12. The New Plan

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

By the time Finnick came to pick Clarke and I up, I was already anxious about what we were going to do about this whole mess. The boys that Clarke had identified as Finn and Murphy had accepted my decision to handcuff them both once they'd registered that Clarke was clearly with me of her own free will, but judging by the awkward glances Clarke and Finn kept giving each other, there was definitely something going on there that I didn't know about. Once we were on board the hovercraft, I relocated our two 'prisoners'- as much as Clarke didn't like to think of it that way, she had at least accepted my decision- to the rear section of the ship while Finnick proceeded towards Johanna and Anya's last location, leaving me to look at my new teammate.

"So," I asked, hoping that Clarke wouldn't take this question too personally, "what's your history with them?"

"Murphy was… well, we had some trouble with him when the dropship landed," Clarke explained, as she sat down opposite me, reaching up to remove her helmet even if she kept her current ponytail. "He had a bit of trouble with my friend Wells when we landed here, then Wells was killed by someone else and Murphy was nearly hanged because I thought he did it…"

"Then what happened?" I asked; judging by Clarke's awkward expression, I was willing to guess that she hadn't tried to hang Murphy herself, but this was clearly still an uncomfortable topic.

"He was exiled from camp for a while, came back and nearly infected us with a virus that some of the other Grounders had infected him with, and then he kept lashing out as some of the people who had hung him until he tried to hang Bellamy and shot Raven shortly before… well, everything happened," Clarke said, shrugging awkwardly at me. "As for Finn… we had a… we were friends early on, then he and I were stuck in a bunker during a storm, and…"

"Oh," I said, not seeing the need to make Clarke more embarrassed than she clearly was by giving me more information. "And it ended badly?"

"I ended it when his girlfriend came down in an escape pod to help us regain contact with the Ark," Clarke explained.

"Ah," I said; I didn't need to know much about relationships to know that a situation like that would make things _very_ complicated.

"Raven's good company, don't get me wrong, and it's not like I knew that Finn was dating anyone when we were in the bunker, but…" Clarke shook her head in frustration at her own words.

"It's not your fault," I said, smiling sympathetically at my new teammate.

My experience with relationships might be limited to whatever I'd had with Peeta and Gale, and I still couldn't define what I had with either of them even if they'd both accepted that I wasn't looking for anything right now, but I hadn't heard anything to suggest that Clarke had been anything less than unfortunate enough to make a bad choice under ridiculously complicated conditions.

"I see them!" Finnick called back to us from his position in the pilot's seat (I would do him the favour of assuming that he'd either ignored our conversation or trusted that I would deal with any potential issues that might come up myself). As Clarke and I turned to face the entrance hatch, I felt the hovership lowering towards the ground before the door opened, Anya jumping inside with a grim expression before an unfamiliar young man and woman entered, Johanna bringing up the rear with a large man wearing a strange outfit of fur and leather held over her left shoulder with her metal arm.

"We got anywhere to chain this guy up?" she asked, looking at me with a pointed stare. "This arm might be able to handle the weight, but my shoulder's killing me."

"Who-?" I began.

" _Lincoln_?" Clarke asked, looking at the figure over Johanna's shoulders in shock.

"Wh- _Clarke_?" the boy said, the two of them running over to embrace Clarke as soon as they realised that she was there.

"How did you- what are you _wearing_?" the girl asked, stepping back to look at Clarke with a grin, as though she'd only just realised that Clarke was wearing her Falcon jetpack and wings.

"It's… my uniform," Clarke shrugged, clearly lost for a better description.

"Your 'uniform'?" the boy repeated, before turning around to look at me more directly, as though he'd only just registered that I was there. "And who are _you_?"

"Call me Mockingjay," I said firmly; the concept of my identity being secret back in Panem might be a no-brainer after everything I'd done in the war, but I still felt more comfortable introducing myself to strangers as Mockingjay rather than Katniss. "I lead the Avengers."

"You?" the new arrival said sceptically. "You can't be-"

"I am," I said resolutely; I might doubt myself at times, but I wasn't in the mood to be criticised by someone who couldn't have any idea what I'd been through to get here. "Our pilot is the Mariner, and I can assume that you already know the Falcon?"

"The Falc- _you're_ on the team?" the boy said, looking incredulously at Clarke as he realised who I was referring to.

"Cool!" the girl grinned, eagerly taking in Clarke's new costume before she looked at me. "How do I join?"

"Uh… we're pretty good member-wise right now," I said, the girl's grin suddenly reminded of some of the kids I saw when we went out to the Districts as a team; she might be older than the usual groups I saw playing 'Avengers' in the streets, but she had that same childish enthusiasm about her. "I take it you're… Octavia?"

"Yeah," the girl said, her smile faltering from eager to slightly sheepish. "Sorry, it's just… well, as Bellamy can confirm, I always loved pretending to be the Black Widow when I was growing up…"

"She had to hide most of the time anyway; telling stories about someone who made a living out of hiding seemed like a good idea," the boy who was apparently Bellamy shrugged, looking around the hovercraft with a sheepish expression.

"Hasn't even grown up yet and the saint already has competition, huh?" Johanna grinned over at me.

"Huh?" Octavia asked, looking curiously at me as I glared back at Johanna.

"Mockingjay's sister… well, she's basically the new Black Widow," Clarke explained, awkwardly indicating me and her jetpack as she spoke. "This team's a mix of old and new, really; this thing belonged to an ally of the original Avengers, one of the other members is using an old Iron Man armour they found somewhere, and Mockingjay's shield used to be Captain America's…"

"That's _the_ shield?" Octavia grinned, looking at the shield on my back with a new sense of enthusiasm. "Can I-?"

"We have other matters to discuss now," Anya said, glaring at Octavia before she indicated the man Clarke had identified as Lincoln, who had been tied to a chair by Johanna while the rest of us were talking. "I spared the Reaper because Bloodaxe would not permit me to kill him at the time, but you must understand that there is no hope for him-"

" _Lincoln_!" Octavia yelled, walking over to stand practically nose-to-nose with the older woman. "He's not this 'Reaper' thing; he's _Lincoln_!"

"What he used to be does not matter," Anya said firmly. "He is nothing more than a Reaper now; he must be eliminated before-"

" _NO_!" Octavia yelled, the outraged punch she threw at Anya catching the older woman in the face thanks to surprise more than anything else; even I could see that this girl had no real training in hand-to-hand even if she had a lot of sprit.

"You _dare_ -!" Anya began, glaring at Octavia with a foreboding green gleam in her eyes.

"ENOUGH!" I said, slamming my shield against the wall of the hovercraft to ensure that I had everyone's attention before the situation escalated. Glancing around, I noticed that Clarke had moved slightly to stand alongside Bellamy and Octavia as they glared at Anya, but I was grateful to see that Johanna was standing back and showing no sign of favouring Clarke or Anya if things degenerated into a fight, even if Finnick had turned around and the console was displaying the green 'autopilot' light. "Before this goes any further, can someone please tell me what the _Hell_ a 'Reaper' actually _is_?"

"People who have been corrupted by the Mountain Men," Anya explained grimly, indicating the bound man behind her. "We do not know how, but sometimes, when the Mountain takes our people, we see them again transformed into monsters who eat human flesh and have no memory of who they once were."

"Cannibals?" Finnick asked, turning in his chair to look at Anya in shock. "These mountain guys turn your people into _cannibals_?"

"Reapers," Anya corrected firmly, before she turned her attention back to Lincoln. "We have attempted to find out what was done to them, but attempts to contain captured Reapers have simply ended with their deaths-"

"You _killed them_ -?!" Octavia began in outrage.

"They died on their own accord," Anya said. "Early on, we kept them contained in the hope that they would exhaust their anger and return to us, but such attempts always ended in them collapsing and dying as we watched."

"I can vouch for that," Johanna put in, nodding briefly at Anya as she leant against the wall alongside that large axe of Thor's. "I mean, I can't confirm that's what happens, but she told me pretty much the same thing back in that car park."

"Just to be sure, how long did it _take_ them to die?" Clarke asked, looking uncertainly at Anya. "I take it we're not just talking about them starving to death, right?"

"Each Reaper only lasts a few hours in captivity before they collapse and cease," Anya confirmed grimly. "It has been described as an agonising end by those who have witnessed it, and we have never been able to determine the cause."

"Until now," Johanna put in, glancing at me with a quizzical raised eyebrow. "I was thinking we might want to get Saint Widow in on this?"

"What?" Octavia asked, before her eyes widened in understanding as she turned to me. "Your sister? The _Black Widow_? You're going to-"

"She took the name to reflect her desire to imitate the original Black Widow's stealth techniques; my sister is our healer, _not_ our assassin," I said firmly, staring at Octavia as though I wanted to make sure she understood me before I turned back to Clarke. "You mentioned that your group originally lived in the dropship that brought you to Earth; I take it that ship's not in use any more?"

"No," Bellamy answered for her, looking grimly between me and Anya. "After we had to burn the whole area to the ground using the dropship's engines… well, nobody's interested in staying there long-term any more."

"Right," I said, nodding in thought for a moment before turning back to address Finnick. "We'll get back to the Ark to drop off our prisoners-"

"Prisoners?" Bellamy and Octavia said simultaneously.

" _Later_ ," I said, noting Clarke nodding gratefully at me; her feelings about this situation might be complicated, but she wasn't going to argue with my decisions. "Once we're there, you can leave us to get to the dropship on foot while you and Bloodaxe take… Lincoln here and head back to the compound to pick up Widow and Iron Man. Tell her to bring whatever she'll need to carry out a blood test so that we can work out what the mountain's using to turn people into… _that_ ; we can carry out more detailed tests at the dropship in case things get… well, unpleasant."

"And what about the prisoners?" Finnick asked, indicating the rear of the ship.

"Who are-?" Octavia began.

"Once we're at the Ark, I'll make sure Mom understands that they're to stay under house arrest until we can… work out what to do next," Clarke interjected, a pleading look in my direction telling me that she needed time to work out what she wanted to do before she told the Blakes what had happened.

Personally, I wasn't sure about that decision, but considering my own lack of experience with these people, for the moment I was going to trust Clarke's judgement and trust that she knew the consequences of what she was asking.


	13. The Reaper Cure

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

The thing that amazed Clarke most about being an Avenger was how quickly she'd settled into the role.

OK, on some level, she couldn't believe that she'd been out of Mount Weather for less than two days and she was already fighting alongside the new Avengers to try and save the Grounders and her own people from whatever Mount Weather was going to do to them, but the rest of her had just… accepted the impossible situation she was facing as though it went without saying. She still wasn't sure if the impulsive plan to try and 'cure' Lincoln of whatever had turned him into a Reaper would work, but if he could be driven this insane this quickly, since Octavia had confirmed that she had only lost Lincoln about a week ago, she had faith that there had to be some kind of external influence responsible for this.

"And… you're sure your sister can help?" she asked, looking uncertainly at Katniss as they approached the Ark.

"She's still in training, but she's been working with the best that the old Capitol has to offer ever since we killed Snow," Katniss said, nodding reassuringly at her new teammate before she turned to Anya. "If we can provide a cure for the Reapers, do you think your commander would be willing to talk before things escalate?"

"If you can cure him," Anya said, her tone making her doubt clear.

" _Hey_!" Octavia said, looking indignantly at the Grounder general. "They're the _Avengers_ -!"

"And we tend to beat things up rather than put our foes through detox, and we don't even know for sure that this is going to work; we'll do our best, but you need to accept that this isn't easy," Katniss noted, fixing Octavia with a brief stare before she turned back to Anya. "Just so you're clear, if it comes to a choice between your people or the Ark, I won't expect you to fight for us if you don't want to, but if you fight against us…"

The silence that filled the hovercraft at that statement said more than words ever could.

Clarke hated to think that this new team she had become a part of was so fragile, but at the same time, she appreciated the fact that Katniss was giving Anya a choice about whether or not to fight with them rather than forcing her to do anything she might not want to do.

"Coming up on the Ark again," Finnick called back to the rest of the team from the front. "Get ready to unload the prisoners!"

"Thanks," Katniss nodded at the Mariner before turning to the others. "Anya, Bellamy, give Finn and Murphy a quick tranq and then take them to whatever passes for a prison here; I assume you know the way?"

"They put me there earlier," Bellamy noted grimly, which at least confirmed Clarke's own theory even if it wasn't the most encouraging news she'd ever heard.

"OK," Katniss said, nodding at Bellamy before she continued talking. "Once we've landed, Mariner and Bloodaxe take Lincoln back to the Avengers compound and collect Black Widow and Iron Man before rendezvousing with us at the dropship; Callie can probably give you the approximate landing coordinates-"

"You don't need to ask her," Octavia said, stepping forward with a firm stare. "I'm going with Lincoln."

"What?" Bellamy said, looking at his sister in shock. "He's-"

"I'm _not_ leaving him," Octavia said firmly. "If he's staying on this thing, so am I."

"He's dangerous-"

"And _I'll_ be here to keep an eye on him until we get home, after which Bread-Boy can handle anything," Johanna interjected, stepping forward with her axe clenched in her remaining hand, raising her metal fist to emphasise her next statement. "Believe me, this thing will do _more_ than enough to keep him down if he tries to eat anyone."

" _Without_ killing him," Clarke and Katniss said simultaneously, the two young women exchanging brief stares at their unexpected moment of synchronicity before Clarke turned back to Finnick.

"Actually, Octavia going with you is probably the best way to get you to that dropship in time," she noted, smiling at the former District Four Victor. "She knows the area, so she can help you track the best route, and she's probably the best qualified to keep Lincoln under control if there's anything of him in there."

"Never complained about having a pretty girl along for the ride," Finnick smiled.

"And I don't count?" Johanna asked.

"You're on the team and I've known you too long; I _can't_ see you as hot," Finnick noted with his usual smirk before he turned back to face the front. "Coming into land at the Ark; everyone out who's getting out."

With that said, the rest of the Avengers moved towards the rear door of the ship, Anya and Bellamny soon rejoining the group at the back with their unconscious prisoners over their shoulders. As soon as the largest door opened, the Avengers filed out into the clearing in front of the crashed Ark, Clarke smiling at the awe on the faces on some of their people before the hovercraft took off once again.

"Clarke?" her mother said, looking uncertainly at her as she walked up to the Avengers. "What are you doing here?"

"We need you to take custody of these two," Katniss said, turning back to indicate Bellamy and Anya and their prisoners. "They've… well, things are complicated."

"What are you…?" Abby began, looking uncertainly at the vanishing hovercraft and the assembled team.

"We… have a lot to deal with," Clarke shrugged awkwardly, lost for any better explanation that she could offer right now. "We just came to leave these two somewhere safe-"

"And contained," Anya interjected firmly, indicating Finn from his position over her shoulder. "This one has committed crimes that must be answered for."

"We aren't sure if Murphy did anything one way or the other, so just keep them locked up without… _doing_ anything," Bellamy added, indicating his own 'prisoner'. "We've got other stuff to do-"

"Excuse me?" Abby said, looking at him indignantly at this lack of acknowledgement to her questions. "You have to-"

"We have things to do," Clarke said firmly. "There's a lot going on that you just don't know about right now, and we're trying to work out the finer details ourselves, so we're going to have to deal with them before we can explain things."

"And I'm supposed to just _accept_ this?" Abby asked. "We're dealing with-"

"Right now, you're dealing with _nothing_ but people feeling anxious about what they've heard; as far we know, nobody who's an actual _threat_ knows about you yet, and we're doing what we can to ensure that the situation doesn't get that far," Katniss said resolutely, as Anya followed Bellamy into the Ark, leaving the Avengers' leader with her newest member as they spoke with the Chancellor. "Believe me, I understand how it feels to have everything in upheaval when you thought you knew what to expect, but you have to believe that we're here to help; we just need to do other things to do that right now."

Looking around the camp at the rest of her people, Abby sighed in resignation as she looked back at the young leader of the Avengers.

"How did you get this kind of responsibility?" she asked.

"I refused to kill someone when the old nation wanted me to and everything started to go wrong," Katniss said grimly. "After that, I was chosen to be the leader of the latest Avengers, and… well, it all worked out from there."

"She's spent the last few months helping to keep the peace in a nation that's still recovering from the end of a major war, Mom," Clarke said, looking defensively at her mother. "Callie spent some time with them learning what they've been through before they recruited me, and… well, it would take a while to give you everything, but I trust them."

Abby sighed as she looked at her daughter, smiling in awkward understanding after a few moments.

"OK," she said at last. "If you think you have to do this… I'll trust you."

"We'll be back as soon as we can be," Clarke said, as Anya and Bellamy returned from the main Ark. "Just keep Finn and Murphy contained until we get back."

She didn't know how long it would take to detox Lincoln, but she had to hope that they'd have the time…

* * *

The only blessing about the uncertain state of grounder society right now was that they didn't have to worry about running into any Grounder patrols. Regardless of what role she'd play if it came to a fight between the Grounders and the Ark, Anya was willing to help them avoid areas where they might encounter any patrols, the team moving along in silence until they reached the dropship.

Actually, Clarke was almost intimidated at seeing how easily she, Bellamy and Katniss all 'deferred' to Anya's expertise in this area. She and Bellamy knew that Anya had experience in this area, but even if Katniss probably recognised the same thing, Clarke was surprised to see how easily the Avengers' leader followed someone else in a situation like this.

Was it a mark of how much the Mockingjay trusted Anya, or how much she _wanted_ to trust the new 'She-Hulk'?

And why did she keep finding her eyes trailing down to Anya's rear…?

The questions were forgotten as she finally caught sight of the original dropship, with the hovercraft positioned beside it at least assuring Clarke that the other Avengers had arrived, even if that left them facing the question of what they could actually _do_ to 'cure' Lincoln. If it was just drugs, it might be possible to help him through the detox, but if it was some kind of surgery or brainwashing…

Her concerns were forgotten as she found herself leading the way into the dropship and saw Octavia looking anxiously at Lincoln, arms strapped to the ceiling in a manner that reminded her of when they'd first held him prisoner, a small blonde girl in a tight black bodysuit anxiously studying a box containing various syringes while another figure in red-and-gold armour stood off to the side.

" _Damn_ …" Bellamy said, staring at Iron Man with a slight smile before he looked back at Clarke. "You know Raven's going to want to check that out, right?"

"Probably," Clarke said, smiling at her friend before she looked back at Iron Man. "Sorry, Raven's… she was kind of our tech in the dropship before the rest of the Ark came down…"

"No worries," Iron Man replied, lifting his visor to reveal the youthful face of the man who'd saved her and Anya from the Mount Weather patrol. "Trust me, _I'm_ still learning everything about this suit; if anyone has any ideas how I can upgrade it, I'm interested."

"Where are the others?" Anya asked, looking curiously around the dropship before her gaze focused on Iron Man.

"Mariner's in the hovercraft in case we need to get away from here on short notice, and Bloodaxe volunteered to stay behind and hold the fort," Iron Man- Peeta, Clarke suddenly remembered his name was- replied, smiling over at the former Grounder general. "Things might be quiet, but we like to make sure that there's always an Avenger available at the facility unless we have a serious crisis that occupies all our attention."

"I see," Anya nodded in understanding.

"Can we focus on this before we start exchanging our personal details and upgrade ideas?" the girl in black said, looking impatiently at the new arrivals. "We've still got to work out what these people from Mount Weather used to drive this man to… well, to make him _this_."

"You haven't found anything yet?" Katniss asked, looking urgently at the small blonde Clarke suddenly remembered was her sister.

"I've been checking blood samples, but I'm having trouble working out what I'm looking at," the new Black Widow said apologetically. "All I can be sure of is that there _is_ something in the blood, but there's no way to be sure if it's the cause or a byproduct of what's been done to him…"

Lincoln suddenly twitched in his bonds, a low growl in his throat, but Peeta raised his gauntlets and Lincoln quietened down, glaring at Iron Man as he did so.

"That was… simple," Bellamy noted, looking between the two in surprise.

"I had to hit him a couple of times while we were getting him here," Peeta said, looking like he actually regretted it as he looked at the other Avengers. "I've been using a low-level blast so that I'm not doing too much focused damage, but he's still lashing out more than I would have expected; he might be feral, but he can't be stupid."

"Maybe it's the lack of recognition?" Clarke suggested. "I mean, from what I've heard about these… Reapers, they seem to go for 'fight' rather than 'flight' in danger, so maybe he's just… so scared of you on some level that the only way he can deal with that is trying to attack?"

"It's possible," the youngest girl noted (Clarke couldn't quite believe that she was a field medic for the _Avengers_ , even if she appreciated that they wouldn't let someone like that on without proof that they could handle themselves). "Whatever was done to him, I don't think he's thinking clearly…"

Lincoln interrupted their conversation when he shook his chains again, glaring in rage at the assembled Avengers for a moment before his gaze shifted upwards as he clenched his jaw.

"He's having a seizure!" the little girl yelled, waving urgently at Iron Man before the other Avenger cut the ties holding him up. As Lincoln fell to the ground, the girl in black moved to hold one arm down while Octavia held down the other, the youngest Avenger reaching up to hold her fingers against the man's neck.

"He's going into shock," the girl said, looking grimly up at the rest of the team. "We have to let him ride it out, and then…"

For a moment, the rest of the team simply watched in silence, Octavia looking particularly anxious while Clarke, Bellamy and Anya exchanged uncertain stares, until Lincoln fell still in front of them.

"It's stopped!" the young girl said, looking up at Iron Man. "Peeta; shock him!"

"Got it," Peeta said, walking over to place his hands on either side of Lincoln's chest before a sudden spark burst from the repulsors. Lincoln jerked for a moment before he fell silent, but then Peeta triggered another shock and Lincoln began breathing again, Octavia crouching down to look anxiously at him.

"Oc… Octavia?" Lincoln said, looking blearily at the former Ark resident before turning to take in the rest of the people in the dropship. "Who…?"

"Later," Octavia said, smiling warmly at Lincoln despite the faint tears in her eyes. "You're OK now…"

Glancing over at the other Avengers, Clarke was glad to see Anya looking at Lincoln in obvious surprise at this turn of events; one case might not set a definitive precedent, but if Anya had been honest, this was probably the first time she had ever seen a Reaper actually return to who they had been before.

It was a small step, but it could be useful in helping them open negotiations with the Grounders' Commander now that Anya knew they actually had something to offer beyond the Avengers…


	14. Meeting the Commander

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: In advance, I warn all fans of 'The 100' that languages are not my strong point, so for this chapter and other chapters in Katniss's POV she will just consider Trigedasleng as 'gibberish' while Anya translates, and I'll provide direct translations of it in the non-Katniss chapters.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Once Prim had confirmed that Lincoln was recovering as well as could be expected, it didn't take long for me to allocate our next roles. Prim and Finnick were ordered back to our facility to work on analysing the blood samples Prim had acquired from Lincoln so that we could determine what was actually being used on the Reapers in the first place; even if I wasn't entirely happy about Prim acting as an Avenger, I could still admire how far she'd come in terms of accepting her new responsibilities.

Bellamy was returning to the crashed Ark to let them know what else was going on, but Octavia had insisted that she remain with Lincoln to make sure that there were no side-effects from the Reaper drug, which meant that that I was left with Peeta, Clarke and Anya to deal with our other challenge.

"You wish to speak to the Commander?" Anya said, looking at me in surprise as we stood outside the dropship.

"Yes," I confirmed. "We've already told the Ark that we're here, and Black Widow and the Mariner can update everyone back at our compound, but we need to let your people know what we're up to if we're going to make any progress in dealing with Mount Weather."

"We're all in this together, Anya," Clarke said, stepping forward to look at the Grounder leader with an awkward but reassuring smile. "We get that you started out with your people, and we're not asking you to abandon those loyalties, but you're also an Avenger now."

"And that requires me to lead you all to the Commander?" Anya asked, her expression shifting to a suspicious glare.

"That requires you to trust us just like we're trusting you," I corrected, hoping that I wasn't playing this particular card too quickly. "Anya, in case you hadn't realised it, when you turn into the She-Hulk Peeta's the only person on the team who could realistically hope to do anything to you in a straight fight, and even that's not saying much from what you seem to be capable of."

"So you keep me on your team to tempt me-?"

"We brought you onto the team to help you," I interjected before Anya's temper could rise any further. "You're powerful, but what we're offering you is a chance to use that power to become part of something greater than yourself; you're free to leave and we won't stop you, but you need to understand that if we feel you're abusing that power we _will_ stop you."

"And what would you consider 'abusing' this power?" Anya countered, looking at me with a firm glare. "Assisting your people against mine?"

"Anya!" Clarke interjected, stepping forward before I could respond. "Katniss has already told you that she doesn't consider the Ark residents to be 'her' people; she's only here to try and keep the peace! The Mountain is our enemy, but…"

She paused for a moment, looking at Anya with a tentative expression before she finally nodded resolutely. "I know that our past attempts to talk were a mess, and I'm sorry that my people thought the worst of yours… but doesn't the fact that we're all trusting you with the kind of power that could kill us all earn us _anything_ in return?"

Anya stared at Clarke for a moment before she looked back at me.

"You said that you killed someone with strength similar to myself?" she asked.

"It wasn't easy, but I did it," I nodded.

"And yet you have chosen not to threaten me with that fate," the young woman continued. "Why?"

"Because I never wanted you to join us because we could kill you," I explained. "I want you to join us because you want to help us, not because you're afraid of the consequences."

"I see," she said, looking thoughtfully at me for a moment before she turned to Peeta. "Can he fly without his helmet?"

"Not very quickly," Peeta replied, shrugging apologetically. "It's a matter of friction; I can carry someone safely enough if they're not looking ahead, but I need the helmet to ensure that I can see where I'm going."

"Then you must remove it as promptly as possible so that my people do not mistake you for one of the Mountain Men," Anya said, looking at him firmly before she turned to Clarke and I. "I will travel with Clarke and you can take Mockingjay, but when we land, you must allow me to make the introductions."

"Of course," Clarke nodded.

"Sure thing," I said, Peeta nodding in understanding.

"Good," Anya said, before she walked over to Clarke with a slight smile. "Shall we get going?"

"We'd better," Clarke said, her wings extending from her sides as she allowed Anya to wrap her arms around her neck. As Clarke wrapped her own arms about Anya, she triggered her jets and the new Falcon took off into the air, leaving me to repeat the process with Peeta before we hurtled into the air.

The flight was silent for the next few moments, with the wind hurtling in my ears too loud to allow me to speak to Peeta, but looking ahead, I could see Clarke adjusting her flight, presumably as Anya offered new directions to the camp. Looking down, all I could see were forests and alternating open areas- this part of the country had been allowed to become far more overgrown than anything around Panem- but it wasn't long at our current speeds before Clarke began to descend to the ground once again, Peeta following her example.

As we drew closer to a fair-sized camp in one of the larger clearings, I was surprised at how relatively basic it was; I knew that the Grounders didn't have the resources of Panem, and I expected the Ark to have limited resources, but I was still expecting something larger than this for the Commander.

As my eyes adjusted to the sight before us, Clarke reached the ground in front of a small group of leather-clad warriors, releasing Anya a few metres above the ground before she spun around in an aerial loop that ended as she set herself down beside Anya. By the time Peeta reached the area, most of the grounders immediately around our two new Avengers had already hurried off towards one of the larger tents, leaving the last two to look up in surprise as Peeta landed. I noted the tension in their postures as they looked at Peeta, but it relaxed significantly as soon as he followed Anya's earlier advice and raised his mask. As the two warriors looked curiously between us, Anya uttered a few quick words to them in some unfamiliar language that swiftly calmed them down, looking uncertainly at the three of us even if they were clearly willing to accept Anya's word.

"What did you say?" I asked.

"I explained that you are representatives of the _Skaikru_ and another clan who wish to speak with the Commander," Anya explained. "They will accept that for the moment."

"OK…" I said, nodding in tentative acceptance as I looked around the camp. "This is where your Commander lives?"

"This is a temporary camp," Anya corrected. "The Commander informed me in our last communication that she was preparing to move into position to better assess the potential threat you might pose to the Coalition; this is the most appropriate location for her to establish that position."

"And you knew that already?" Clarke asked curiously. "I mean, you were dealing with me and the rest of the 100 at the dropship before you were captured by the Mountain, and then-"

"The Commander was my second before she was called to her new role," Anya explained. "I know how she thinks and how she will react to situations such as this, including where she will establish her presence."

"Ah," I said, nodding uncertainly before I decided to ask my new question. "So… how did she go from being your _second_ to being the _Commander_? That seems like a pretty big jump…"

"She was chosen by the spirit of the previous commander as all other Commanders were," Anya explained, her tone so direct that a quick glance was all I needed to confirm that Peeta and Clarke shared my scepticism at that idea and were equally united in my decision not to press the issue. "When the time came for her to answer the call, she responded, and was the first Commander to successfully unite all twelve clans under one authority in the Coalition, rather than the simple tentative alliances that have formed in the past."

"Really?" Peeta said, looking at Anya in surprise. "That's… impressive."

"You must be proud of what she's done, then," I said, trying not to fidget as I noticed some of the surrounding Grounders looking uncertainly at the four of us. Anya might be a familiar face to somebody here, but the fact that she was dressed in distinctly non-Grounder clothing and was accompanied by two people capable of flying and one woman wielding strange weapons was bound to raise questions.

"My training has little to do with what she has accomplished, but I am… proud of how well she has done," Anya said, her voice low as though she was slightly ashamed to admit that.

"It's OK to be proud of people you're close to," I said, smiling over at her in an attempt to bond. "I mean, I'm proud of what my sister's done, and I didn't really have anything to do with her medical training."

I was saved from further attempts at potentially awkward conversation when a man came up to us, his long thick beard giving him a slightly menacing manner as he and Anya exchanged a few brief words. I didn't need to understand the language to realise that he didn't like us being here, but Anya's firm tone seemed to put most of his potential arguments to rest before he could get started, and he finally muttered in frustration before he led us to a particular tent in the centre of this small gathering.

As we were shown inside, I allowed Anya to take the lead as we stood in front of a surprisingly sophisticated wooden throne for a society on the Grounders' level, with two guards standing on either side of it. However, the most surprising thing about this discovery was the woman sitting in it; she was clearly in good shape, with a thin but muscular build that reminded me of some of the Careers I'd faced in the Games, but the fact that she seemed to only be a few years older than Clarke and I was completely unexpected. As Anya started to speak with the woman, I exchanged a quick glance with Clarke, but it was clear that Clarke only knew a little more of this language than I did, and certainly not enough to keep up with what we were hearing right now.

After a few moments of heated exchange between the two Grounder leaders, Anya stepped aside and indicated that the three of us should step forward, with Clarke and I moving up to stand directly in front of the throne while Peeta waited behind us, faceplate still up as he looked cautiously at his surroundings.

"You… are not Skaikru?" the Commander asked, looking at me in surprise.

"No, I'm not," I replied, refusing to let myself be intimidated; after standing up to the Maestro when he was fully transformed, I wasn't going to back down when faced with someone only a few years older than me, even if she commanded such a potentially large group even without Snow's advantages. "We come from… another coalition in another part of the country; we were unaware of your existence until recently due to our former leader's control."

"How could one leader restrict your knowledge?"

"He confined everyone in our… coalition… to twelve different areas, restricted us to only what knowledge and items we needed to produce specific resources, limited our ability to communicate with each other, and the only times we ever met was when a group of our children were sent to kill each other as part of an annual competition," I replied; on some level, it was odd not to think myself as a 'child' any more when I still using my reputation from the Games, but as an Avenger I didn't have the luxury of still being a 'kid'. "Iron Man and I attracted a great deal of attention a few years ago when we were the last contestants standing in our Games and refused to kill each other, which sparked off a revolution that led to us forming this team."

"'Team'?" the Commander repeated.

"Think of us as a… hunting patrol for unique threats," Clarke put in, looking at the Commander with a new awkwardness about her manner; evidently she was a lot more intimidated by this meeting than I was. "Mockingjay has exceptional skill with a bow and arrow and her shield is made of the strongest material ever encountered, two of the others are well-known for their experience with other distinctive weapons, and Iron Man… well, he goes without saying."

"And you have joined this… 'team'?" the Commander asked, looking curiously at Anya.

"Things have changed since I was in the Mountain," Anya replied. "I have… changed… in a manner that leads me to conclude that I would be best suited to join them."

"What kind of changes?" the Commander asked. Instead of replying, Anya closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment before her skin turned green and her body began to grow, shrugging off her jacket and trousers before they tore under the strain of the transformation to leave only her purple bodysuit and the gloves and boots.

"This sort of change," Anya replied, her voice notably deeper as the Commander looked at her in surprise.

"How?" the other woman asked, managing to sound only slightly shocked despite the fact that she obviously couldn't have seen something similar before.

"It's complicated to explain; let's just say that we were trying to save Anya's life and there was an unexpected side-effect," I said, hoping that would be enough; I couldn't be sure how much the Commander would understand if I started talking about gamma radiation and blood transfusions, and the last thing I wanted was to cause a misunderstanding at such a crucial moment. "We invited her and Clarke to join the team while we're dealing with the Mountain Men, and she's accepted."

"You will face the Mountain Men?" the Commander asked.

"We don't like what they're doing to your people and we're worried about what they'll do if they get out," I said firmly, as Anya returned to her human form and put her clothes back on. "We know that you have no reason to trust us, but believe me; now that we know about Mount Weather, we're not going to leave them to cause more trouble in the future until we're sure they've been neutralised as a threat."

"And what makes you believe that your aid is wanted?"

"They have found a means of curing the Reapers," Anya said.

The Commander blinked in surprise, prompting a brief exchange in whatever the Grounder language was before they turned back to us as one of her guards left the tent.

"I will release our prisoners and you may return them to your people," the Commander said, before she fixed a particularly intense glare at Clarke and I. "However, there is one condition for this alliance to work."

"Specifically…?" I asked, already apprehensive about what she might ask.

"We have heard that one of the Skaikru was responsible for the deaths of a village near here," the Commander replied grimly. "You must hand over the one responsible for those deaths to our justice."

"Ah," I said, pausing for a moment to make sure that Clarke wasn't about to do or say anything drastic before replying myself. "Can we… have a couple of days to run this by our leaders? You have to understand that we're protectors; we don't have the authority to make that kind of decision ourselves…"

The Commander nodded in acknowledgement before Anya turned to lead us out of the tent, the conversation apparently concluded. As we emerged from the tent, the guard who had left earlier returned, accompanied by two men, one dark-skinned with a greying beard and one with lighter skin and thick black hair.

"Marcus?" Clarke said, looking at the younger man in surprise before her expression became literally incredulous as she took in the older man. " _Chancellor Wells_? Mom told me that you were-"

"I managed to get a rocket working and get back down," the Chancellor said, smiling briefly at Clarke before he turned to look at the rest of us, his expression quizzical for a moment before his gaze fixed on Peeta. "Hold on; _Iron Man_?"

"Yes, we're the Avengers, yes we live on Earth, no we're not part of this Coalition, and this isn't the time to talk about that," I put in; these two men might be leaders among their people, but for the moment I had bigger priorities than filling them in on my team's complicated history. "We've managed to negotiate a peace, but you need to tell everyone at the Ark what's been decided."

I was inwardly surprised at the ease with which I was now attempting to command authority from people who didn't know me by reputation already, but I had to deal with the immediate issues facing us as a team as well as our latest crisis, which meant reporting to Steve and the new Panem government as well.

It was only when Clarke picked me up and started flying back towards our facility that I realised two things; I was already thinking of Clarke and Anya as automatic parts of the team, and neither of them seemed to object to it.

This wasn't going to be easy, but if I could command their respect, I might just be able to pull off the role of leader in my first truly solo crisis…


	15. Authority Issues

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: As it comes up in this chapter, I should clarify that I will be keeping all revelations about ALIE and the Nightbloods intact in this continuity; the exact circumstances that led to the destruction of Polaris and ALIE's role in the nuclear apocalypse will be 'tweaked' slightly to accommodate the Avengers' history, but it probably won't be covered in depth, and those changes won't affect how things are in the present

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

As the four Avengers returned to the main compound, Clarke wasn't sure if she should be pleased or shocked at what had just happened.

On the one hand, they'd managed to get the hoped-for treaty with the Grounders, and she had faith that the Avengers would be there to help them mount any kind of attack, but on the other hand, the terms that the Grounders had asked for…

No matter how Finn had lied to her about his relationship with Raven- even if it had just been a lie of omission when he'd had every right to assume he'd never see her again- he didn't deserve to die because he'd freaked out and made one horrific decision.

There had to be _something_ she could do about that, she just needed time to think…

Looking ahead as she approached the Avengers' facility- she'd been mostly following Iron Man, but Clarke was pleased to note that she was starting to recognise a couple of landmarks from this height- Clarke was surprised to see a large black hovercraft on the ground alongside the Avengers' own ship, but soon decided that it wasn't worth worrying about. From what she'd heard about the Avengers' past missions, Bloodaxe and the Mariner could probably handle anything that might have tried to attack them from a ship that size, and the compound seemed to be peaceful enough anyway.

Of course, in what Clarke remembered of novels set before the Ark, when a large black vehicle showed up to talk with any kind of law enforcement, it was probably going to be bad news even if it wasn't an immediate fight.

Hoping that she was just being paranoid, Clarke put on an extra burst of speed to send her and Mockingjay to the ground just ahead of Iron Man and Anya. Almost as soon as they'd touched down, the Avengers' leader was walking towards a particular part of the facility, leaving Clarke to take a brief glance back and confirm that the other two were still coming towards them before she hurried after her leader.

As Mockingjay entered the building, Clarke was surprised to find that the door led immediately into a fair-sized office, with a desk at one end and various pictures on the surrounding walls displaying pictures of the original Avengers. Steve Rogers was sitting behind the desk, a slight tension in his shoulders as he looked at the white-haired woman in some kind of business suit and a young man with dark hair in some kind of armour sitting opposite him.

"Senator Coin?" Mockingjay said, looking at the woman in surprise.

"Hello, Sold- I'm sorry, _Mockingjay_ ," the woman said, smiling slightly at the Avengers' leader before she looked at Clarke, her eyes widening briefly in surprise. "And who is this?"

"You can call her the Falcon," Mockingjay said; Clarke was suddenly grateful that she hadn't taken her helmet off yet. "She's the newest member of the team."

"Excuse me?" the young man said, looking incredulously at Clarke, the older woman stifling her own shocked reaction to the point that Clarke only noticed it because she was looking for it. " _She's_ on the team?"

"I'm on the team," Clarke confirmed, returning the man's incredulous stare with a fixed gaze; she might be unsure about the honour she'd been given by being invited to join the Avengers, but as long as she was here she was going to stand up for herself.

"OK, I'm sorry, but I have to ask; what the _Hell_ , Catnip?" the young man said indignantly, looking at Clarke in shock. "I've been asking to join for- _two_?"

Glancing around, Clarke noticed that Peeta and Anya had entered the door of the hut, which was becoming slightly crowded even if there was still space for a couple more people, with the Avengers symbol on the shoulder of Anya's jacket clearly displaying her affiliation with the team.

"Gale," Katniss said, looking at the other man with a grim sense of resignation about her, "we've been over this; you just aren't Avengers-level at anything."

"So you're picking some _strangers_ over me-?" Gale began, taking a step towards the Avengers' leader before a hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder.

"Do not make me angry," Anya said, her expression cold as she looked at the two new arrivals. "You would not like me when I am angry."

"Trust me, you wouldn't," Peeta put in, smiling around the room with his helmet under his head even as Gale and Coin took an anxious step back. "I've seen her in action, and Anya is _very_ good; she's better than most of the Tributes we've seen, and don't get me started on how she compares to some of the soldiers."

"I see," Coin said, looking quizzically at Anya. "And how did you come by these skills?"

"I survived," Anya replied firmly.

"Anya was the leader of one of the tribes I told the government about in my report," Steve put in, smiling slightly as Coin turned to look at him in shock. "Long story short, I felt that we needed a voice from those tribes to represent their views in the future of the Avengers considering the scope of their territory, and since her tribe was… lost… before we met her, it was decided that Anya would make a good candidate for membership."

"Some primitive-?" Gale began, only to cut himself short when Peeta turned one arm slightly to reveal a glowing repulsor in his palm.

"Like she said," the baker-turned-Avenger said with a brief shrug as he turned his palm back towards himself, "you don't want to make her angry."

"You don't have the authority to do this, Soldier Rogers," Coin said, looking at the old man with a grim smile of her own despite the brief exchange between her guard and the Avengers. "The original agreement stated that you would follow my orders-"

"That 'agreement' only applied when we were operating on a war footing and you were the only person with the suitable authority to help me protect the relics," Steve countered. "What I do now, I do as the coordinator of the Avengers for the sake of Earth; I'm not District Thirteen's military consultant, and I don't owe you any specific allegiance now that you're not President. I'm grateful for what you and your predecessors did for me, but right now I have to prioritise what works best for the people."

"And getting us involved in another conflict will do that?" Coin asked. "We're still working on rebuilding to any serious degree after everything Snow did before your team stopped him; we don't have the time or resources to deal with another war-"

"You're not fighting a war; we are," Katniss corrected, indicating the other Avengers. "We're an elite strike force trying to keep the peace, and keeping that peace means that we're going to help the Ark and the Coalition deal with the threat posed by Mount Weather-"

"You've just told us that there are at least three new civilisations out there, and the first thing you're planning to do is go to war with one of them," Coin said, glaring back at Mockingjay, even if there was an edge to her tone that made it clear she didn't entirely believe her own words. "If you expect us to support this, you need to accept our own authority-"

"You don't _have_ any authority," Peeta countered. "Or are you forgetting what Steve _just_ told you?"

"If you'll remember, I made it clear before the elections that the Avengers cannot become political figures," Steve continued. "The moment we allow officials to tell us what to do, we create the risk that others will try to counter us by creating their own superhumans, and the circumstances that gave the team their abilities could easily result in horrific mutations at best. We _have_ to remain independent, which means that we're at liberty to get involved in dealing with any threat to innocent life on a large scale."

"And that independence means that you don't dictate our membership, Senator Coin," Katniss put in, looking firmly at the older woman. "The Avengers aren't something you can buy or bribe your way onto; if you don't have the skills to be offered a place on the team, you'd be endangering yourself and everyone relying on you in a fight, and the team would just be weaker rather than anything else."

"You weren't that much better than me-!" Gale cut in.

"It's not just a question of skill, it's a question of _attitude_ ," Katniss said, looking at Gale with a solemn expression that Clarke couldn't identify. "Gale, I've told you before; you're just… I know that you have your reasons for feeling that way, but you're just too _angry_ for me to trust you on the team."

"Damnit, catnip, I was there for you _before_ all this 'Avengers' crap-!" Gale began, taking a step forward before Anya was suddenly standing between the young man and her new leader, a firm glare in her eyes that was only reinforced by the slight green tint they'd suddenly developed.

"I believe that Mockingjay informed you that she does not wish for you to join the team," Anya said firmly. "If you do not have what it takes, that is your problem."

"And if you bring us to Mount Weather's attention, what happens then?" Coin asked. "We can't fight another war-"

"We aren't asking you to fight our war," Clarke interjected, looking firmly at the older woman; she might have only learned the essential details of this society's history, but she'd gathered enough to feel uncomfortable at the idea of this woman having any authority over the Avengers. "We're asking you to let _us_ fight our war."

"'We'?" Gale said, walking over to glare at Clarke. "You get a fancy suit and you think you deserve to be an Avenger-?"

"I don't if I deserve this, Gale; what I _know_ is that the first Avenger and the leader of the Avengers decided that Anya and I would be good additions to the team, so we're here," Clarke said, hoping that the moment of weakness she'd shown wouldn't turn out to be a mistake later.

"And before you suggest anything," Katniss cut in, "we were already committed to helping Clarke and Anya's people _before_ they were invited to join us; the fact that they're good additions to the team just makes it easier."

"You can't just go around diving into every little problem; you're needed here-!"

"We're the Avengers, Senator Coin," Peeta added with a slight smile. "In case you forgot, our job description states that we're _Earth's_ mightiest heroes; we're not just here to save Panem."

"And we're _not_ needed here right now," Katniss corrected the older woman. "We're going to remain on call if something comes up, but as it stands, Snow's largest loyalist groups have been defeated or contained, and anyone left in Panem that might be a threat just doesn't have the resources to do anything to us right now. Mount Weather is a former military stronghold with nuclear weapons whose residents apparently think they have the right to take Earth's surface regardless of who suffers in the process; if we don't stop them now, we've heard enough to be sure that they'll take more decisive action when they're ready to get out."

"And if you're just making another threat aware that we're here?" Coin countered.

"Then we'll stop that too," Katniss said resolutely. "I have faith in Clarke and Anya, Senator; with their help, we _can_ stop things before they go too far."

Clarke didn't need to know this woman to know that Senator Coin wasn't happy about that declaration, but her frustrated glare was tempered by the glances she kept shooting in Steve's direction; even if she didn't like the man Clarke still couldn't quite believe had been the world's first Avenger, this woman evidently knew that arguing with him would be a waste of time.

"Very well," she said at last, nodding in resignation. "I will… inform the council of your current situation."

"What?" Gale said, looking sharply at Coin before he registered the pointed glare he was receiving from Anya and decided to stay quiet, simply following Coin out of the room.

"Well… that was awkward," Clarke said, smiling in a weak attempt to lighten the mood. "Who were they?"

"Senator Coin used to be President Coin; she was in charge of District Thirteen, and basically the political leader of the revolution that ended when we killed President Snow," Peeta explained. "She ran for President of the new unified Panem once the war was over, but she didn't win; she's still got some influence, mainly because she was able to get a role acting as our liaison to the government, but she's always subtly implied that she thinks we were the reason she lost, because the Avengers wouldn't endorse her candidacy."

"Endorse her candidacy?" Anya repeated.

"We didn't say that we thought she'd make a good leader."

"And that made a difference?"

"We wanted to make sure that the entire nation chose who they thought would be the best candidates for the job," Katniss shrugged, looking curiously at Anya. "Don't you elect your leaders?"

"Leaders for the twelve clans are chosen based on their skill as warriors and hunters, and the Commander is chosen only from the Nightbloods," Anya explained.

"Nightbloods?" Katniss asked, before she shook her head and held up a hand to stop Anya's reply. "Unless it's going to make a difference to this alliance right now, it's not important; we've got enough to worry about right now."

"On the topic of the alliance," Steve smiled at the four of them, "how are things with the Coalition?"

"They are intrigued at your offer," Anya said, speaking for the small group before anyone else could say a word. "I have vouched for your ability to cure the Reapers, and the Commander is willing to work with the Avengers and your own forces to coordinate an assault on the Mountain… with certain conditions."

"Ah," Steve said, standing up from behind the desk with a sigh. "In that case, we should probably get the rest of the team together; considering the scale of what we're trying to do, I think I can safely assume that we all need to hear this."

* * *

Sitting around the briefing room, Clarke tried not to feel too intimidated at the gathering; even if she was an official Avenger, it still felt unnerving to be sitting at the head of a table with Earth's Mightiest Heroes, when she'd only been an amateur medic and technically juvenile delinquent struggling for survival after escaping Mount Weather a few days ago.

OK, so this wasn't the entire Avengers team- she still hadn't been introduced to Thor, and Prim/Black Widow was apparently busy with some tests she was carrying out on Lincoln- but the fact that Callie was there seemed to make up for that; considering that Clarke had spent years looking up to Callie, the idea that she was now the one in authority just felt… _weird_.

"Let me get this straight; they'll agree to the alliance if we hand over this 'Finn' guy?" Finnick asked.

"Blood must have blood," Anya said grimly.

"Nice philosophy," Finnick mused. "And what happens if they ask for more-?"

"They will not," Anya said. "All they wish is to avenge the eighteen people he killed."

"OK, let's tackle this issue step by step," Johanna put in, looking curiously at Callie. "Firstly, have you heard of this 'Finn' guy?"

"I read a few reports about his original arrest, but that's about it," Callie confirmed. "There was some suspicion about his arrest, actually- he claimed responsibility for an unlicensed spacewalk when he'd never shown any interest in doing something like that himself- but there was no real reason to look into what had happened at the time, so we didn't."

"Raven…" Clarke smiled in understanding.

"Raven?" Anya asked.

"She was… basically, she was our tech expert for a while," Clarke explained. "She worked on maintaining the Ark's technology when we were in space, and then she helped us develop some equipment here on Earth, such as… well, she helped us make new bullets before our confrontation on the bridge when we met, as well as get in touch with the Ark in the first place."

"And what does she have to do with this?" Johanna asked.

"She and Finn were dating up on the Ark. Raven just turned eighteen a short while ago, and she only started working around the time that Finn was arrested, based on what I've heard about their pasts; if she went on a spacewalk before she was officially authorised, he could have taken the credit for it to save her life."

"Because… he wouldn't have been eighteen, so he wouldn't have been floated immediately?" Katniss asked.

"Exactly; he could have even been released if he had made a good argument at an appeal trial," Clarke nodded, before she turned to Katniss and Steve. "Anyway, that's not important right now; what matters is what can we do to save him?"

"Couldn't we make them back down?" Finnick asked. "I mean, we're the freakin' _Avengers_ -"

"We can't exactly tell them that we're not going to help them stop Mount Weather if they kill Finn," Katniss said. "The Avengers are heroes; we can't make our help conditional."

"That's the real problem with this whole situation," Steve sighed. "As I told Senator Coin, the Avengers can't be politically motivated, but unfortunately, that means that we can't get involved in legal proceedings."

"Excuse me?" Johanna asked, looking sharply at him.

"I'm not saying we can't act as witnesses or be subject to legal proceedings, I just meant that we can't _interfere_ in them."

"I get it," Finnick nodded grimly. "If we start stepping in and demanding certain verdicts if we don't approve of the most likely outcome, how long until we become like Snow?"

"We _wouldn't_ -!" Peeta began.

"No, he's right," Clarke said, shaking her head grimly as she looked at the former baker. "We all like to think that we won't go that far, but speaking as the person who's tried to form a new society from an old one when the dropship came down, it's all too easy to start repeating the old mistakes once you get started."

"And that means we just accept their request to basically torture this guy to death?" Peeta asked. "I'm not defending what he did, but he was under a lot of stress, and from what you've told us he'd never have done something like that normally-"

"So the fact that he went nuts for a bit is a reason to let him off for murder?" Johanna asked.

"I'm saying we should take it into account rather than condemn him for something he'd never have done-"

"And what's the other option?" Johanna asked. "Hand over some other schmuck to die in his place? I get that I _chose_ to call myself Bloodaxe, but I'm not here to kill people just because I like it!"

"Which is why we need this alliance," Katniss said. "We might have Thor and Anya, but we can't just smash the mountain open without killing even the people in there who might want to help us; if we're going to bring it down, we need a plan that goes beyond just overwhelming force."

"Which means finding a way to get as many people attacking it as possible," Clarke sighed grimly; she understood why the rest of 'Panem' couldn't get involved in this problem, but that didn't stop it being frustrating.

"And that's not our only problem," Prim put in, as she walked grimly into the room.

"We have more?" Finnick asked, giving the youngest Avenger an awkward grin. "What now?"

"I just finished my first wave of tests on Lincoln's blood sample," the young girl explained. "I don't know how it got in there, but I found gamma radiation in his system."

"So?" Clarke asked. "We knew from Anya that there was some gamma radiation out there-"

"Not in levels like this," Prim corrected. "I already ran a DNA test and managed to confirm that he doesn't have the gene sequence Captain Rogers tentatively identified as the key to allowing Anya and Bruce to transform into Hulks. There's too much gamma radiation in there for it to be regular exposure, there's too little for it to actually trigger a transformation, but there's no way he could have been exposed to something that could do this to him and still be alive; the only way there could be this much gamma radiation in Lincoln's blood without him actually transforming is if he was injected with it."

"Injected?" Clarke repeated. "Why would someone do that?"

"Some kind of drug?" Finnick asked. "From what you've told us about the state he was in, those Reaper guys sound fairly tough; if gamma radiation always makes people tough and angry, maybe these mountain guys use it in some kind of controlled dosage to make them tough enough to be a problem without making them so strong that they could turn against their masters."

"But how could they have access to gamma-irradiated blood?" Peeta asked. "You said that Bruce was the only person-"

"Because I really hoped that the other guy was dead," Steve said, groaning in frustration as he leaned over to rest his head against the table.

"There was _another_ Hulk?" Finnick asked, looking sharply at Steve.

"Not exactly," Steve said, sitting up with a grim expression.

"How 'not exactly'?" Johanna asked.

"Believe me, if you thought Snow was bad, this guy's worse," Steve said grimly. "I'm not denying that he did terrible things, but at least Bruce went through horrors of his own before he resorted to inflicting them on others; Emil Blonsky had no reason to snap and he ended up tearing through a New York district when he first got his powers just because he could…"

"Emil Blonsky?" Clarke asked. "That was his name?"

" _Is_ his name," Prim said, swallowing slightly as she looked around the table. "Based on the amount in Lincoln's system, it was too potent to be taken from even a well-preserved corpse, and we know from Snow that gamma mutations can include an extended lifespan."

"I am… long-lived?" Anya asked.

"Possibly; we… still need to work out the extent of your transformation," Katniss put in, before turning back to Steve. "So what makes this… Blonsky different from the Hulk?"

"Blonsky was a trained soldier and combat veteran who was selected by General Ross to be part of the team assigned to hunt Bruce down a few years before he joined the Avengers," Steve explained solemnly. "As part of that, once Ross witnessed Blonsky's skill and learned of his preference for fieldwork, he arranged for Blonsky to be injected with a prototype version of the serum that was used to create me, which accelerated his speed and his ability to heal, but had some kind of warped effect on his mind. When Ross's team managed to capture Bruce, Blonsky forced a scientist Bruce had been working with while trying to cure himself to inject him with a sample of Bruce's blood, which combined with the proto-serum to turn Blonsky into… well, after he was defeated by Bruce's first semi-controlled use of the Hulk, everyone referred to him as 'the Abomination'."

"Not pretty, huh?" Johanna asked.

"Bits of his own skeleton were sticking out of his skin, including his spine."

"…Yeah, that's gross," the one-armed ex-lumberjack acknowledged.

"And you think he's in Mount Weather?" Clarke asked.

"We lost track of where he was being imprisoned after SHIELD fell, so it's not impossible to assume that he was in Mount Weather when the nuclear missiles were launched," Steve explained, his tone grim as he looked around at the rest of the team. "If Mount Weather have access to Emil Blonsky and are using him to create the Reavers…"

"It's safe to say that this just became an even more Avengers-level problem," Katniss finished for him.

Looking around the table, Clarke felt the new weight of the burden facing them.

They weren't just up against a desperate race of people trying to survive on Earth's surface; if the Mountain had access to something that had once fought the Hulk, no matter what state he was in now, this upcoming fight was almost certainly going to become _very_ complicated…


	16. The Judgement of Finn

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Sitting in the back of the Quinjet, I wondered if I was ready for what we were about to do.

After spending the last couple of hours talking about Mount Weather and the proposed alliance with the Grounders, in the end, the best that we could do at the time was defer the decision so that we could talk with Clarke's own people and give them a choice in the situation. With the mounting evidence that Mount Weather had access to the only man who'd ever given the Hulk a direct physical challenge, it was clear that we couldn't leave them to gather more power or get a clearer idea what they were working with, but that didn't mean that we liked what we were about to do.

I had never kidded myself that being an Avenger would make everything easy, but I supposed I'd grown too used to riding on my reputation as the Mockingjay to get what I wanted outside of a fight and only having to confront a problem by beating it into the ground. I'd fought to stop Snow to end the war and ensure that the Hunger Games would never happen again; I'd never expected to find myself in a position where I was basically handing someone over to be killed.

The worst part was that I could see both sides of the situation. If I'd agreed with Clarke that Finn should be given a pardon for what he'd done because he'd basically suffered a mental breakdown, I could have felt more comfortable going in with a clear plan, but at the same time I could understand why Anya and her people wanted revenge/justice for what he'd done to that village before Clarke had found him…

Still, even if things were complicated where Finn was concerned, I could at least be sure that Lincoln and Octavia were recovering nicely enough. The former Reaper was apparently doing well, but Prim had insisted on keeping him in the medical wing for a couple of days to make sure that there weren't any side-effects from all the gamma radiation that had been injected into him, and Octavia had made it clear that she would stay by his side until he was well enough to return to the Ark with her. Prim had estimated that it should only take him a day or so until he was well enough to move- she had him on a few transfusions and purging equipment to clear his system of any remaining toxins from the Abomination's blood- but she preferred to be safe rather than sorry.

With the Panem Government now aware of our situation, and therefore aware that we wouldn't be able to respond to anything as quickly as we might before, it had been decided that this was as good a time as any to introduce the Ark- and from them the 'Grounders'- to the full force of the modern Avengers (Prim staying behind didn't matter as I was hopeful that we wouldn't need 'Black Widow' for the current crisis, considering the risk of her finding the Abomination if she tried to sneak into the mountain). Steve had even decided to come with us, leaving my mother to basically deal with any calls for us that might be received before we got back; considering the scale of what was being discussed, we had all decided that his input would be needed even if he insisted that I was still the leader of the team.

"We're coming in," Finnick said at last, breaking the silence that had settled over us as the hovercraft began to descend towards its destination. On cue, the team stood up and moved to gather around the cockpit area, staring as we drew in closer to the remnants of the Ark, still battered but otherwise already showing a marked improvement from the wreck it had been on my first visit. As the ship came to a halt, the door opened and I led the way out, Clarke immediately behind me followed by the rest of the team, Finnick putting the ship on lockdown before he joined us.

Looking at the various people standing around outside the 'building' where our meeting was about to take place, I was suddenly grateful that we'd already sent a message on to the Ark to tell them about the Coalition's terms for the alliance. Granted, I had no way to _know_ that Jaha and Kane had reached here before us, but I was optimistic that they had, if only because it saved me having to worry about everyone's reaction to learning about the terms of the alliance directly; Clarke and Callie had handled it well enough, but at least I knew that they believed in me.

"Hello," I said, nodding grimly at the assembled former Ark residents. "We're… here to talk to your Chancellor?"

"We'll take you," a young man said, stepping out with a gun in his hand and two others on either side of him. It took me a moment to recognise Bellamy Blake, now that he looked a bit cleaner and was wearing what looked like a security uniform, but once I identified him I quickly saw that the other boy was Murphy, although the dark-haired woman with the brace around her left leg was unfamiliar.

"Raven?" Clarke said, looking awkwardly at the girl with the brace. "You're walking?"

"Your mom," Raven said (Now that she'd mentioned the name, I recalled Clarke talking about 'Raven' as the unofficial mechanic for her group before they were abducted; I just hadn't asked for more information at the time to help me focus on the main problem). "She just couldn't treat _all_ of the nerve damage."

"Ah," Peeta said, as we followed the three teenagers into the Ark, the group of people outside looking at us curiously even if they seemed to have been ordered to remain out of the upcoming meeting.

"How's Octavia?" Bellamy asked.

"She's fine," I smiled in understanding. "She's just staying with Lincoln while my sister keeps an eye on him; the… drugs… that turned him into that really took a lot out of him, so we're keeping him under observation until we know he'll be all right."

"Good," Bellamy said, before wincing slightly. "I mean that Lincoln's OK, not-"

"We get it," Peeta nodded, before his gaze shifted to where Murphy and Anya were looking at each other in a particularly grim manner.

"You have a weapon," Anya said, glancing at the gun in Murphy's hand.

"And you're an Avenger," Murphy countered with a brief shrug. "Guess we've all gone up in the world, huh?"

"Let's… not get into that now," Peeta put in, stepping forward to stand between the two before Murphy could say anything else; only the slight hum of his repulsors gave away that he was preparing to fight if things went wrong. Evidently Murphy recognised when he shouldn't push his luck as he stepped back and moved to the rear of the group, simply giving Steve a curious glance without asking any questions as Peeta raised his face-plate, giving everyone a chance to see his face while making it easy for him to leap into action if things turned ugly.

"So," Raven said, looking coldly at us after we had spent a few moments walking down the corridor in silence, "you're the guys who want to hand Finn over?"

"Don't shoot the messengers, Miss Reyes," Finnick smiled at the girl in the manner that had made him the Capitol's darling before their true agenda was exposed.

"And we don't _want_ to hand him over; they made the demands and we're just… going over all options," I said defensively.

"Right," Raven said, before looking at the rest of the team before her gaze focused on Johanna's metal arm. "Holy shit, what happened to _you_?"

"Our first big threat crushed my old arm," Johanna shrugged, before indicating the girl's left leg. "If we're discussing war wounds, what happened to you there?"

"Bullet to the spine," Raven said grimly. "Abby got it out, but like I said, there was still some nerve damage."

"Ouch," Johanna said sympathetically.

"Can we just… talk to your leaders?" I asked, even as I made a note to have Prim or my mother take a look at Raven's spine once this was all over. I didn't know the full details of what our salvaged medical technology from the Capitol was capable of, but if they could repair most of the scars old Victors had suffered in the Games, it didn't seem implausible that they could do something with Raven's leg.

"Sure," Bellamy said, nodding as he turned to walk down a corridor, followed by my team. As we walked into the conference room where I'd spoken with Clarke and her mother earlier, I wasn't entirely surprised to see the woman in question already sitting at the other end of the table, although Jaha and Kane were a slight surprise.

"We're here," I said, looking at the grim faces of the three-man Ark council at the other end of the table.

"Well," Johanna grinned nonchalantly, "don't everybody thank us at once."

"You're… kids?" Kane said, looking at us in surprise; I told myself not to be offended at the implication that he'd assumed I was a 'junior' Avenger when we met earlier.

"Believe me, we haven't been 'kids' for a long time," Finnick said, his usual smile gone as he looked grimly at the other man. "I had to act as a _prostitute_ for our old government to keep my wife safe, Johanna lost her entire family because she wouldn't play ball, and you don't want to know what Katniss and Peeta had to go through to get to where we are."

"You were a prostitute?" Kane asked.

"Like I said," Finnick countered, his manner unusually grim for his usual approach, "you don't want to know."

"I'm… sure you've been through a lot, but…" Aby began, before she finally registered Steve as he stood behind us, his aged features standing out against the youthful faces of the rest of the team. "And you are?"

"Steve Rogers," Steve smiled, nodding politely at Abby. "You may know me as Captain America."

I fought the urge to smile as all three of the Ark leaders stared at Steve in shock at that last statement.

"…You can't be Captain America," Jaha said at last. "He would have died over two centuries ago-"

"Almost did, actually," Steve interjected with a grim smile. "It took another period in suspended animation, a mass of artificial organ replacements designed by the original Iron Man, and the fact that the serum makes things easier to get me to this point, but it's me."

"Oh my God…" Abby said, staring at Steve incredulously before she looked at me. "Why didn't you tell me you had the original Avenger-?"

"I think I can guess where this is going, so I'll stop you right there," Steve interjected, holding up a firm hand. "Despite what you might think, I am not the leader of the Avengers."

"What?"

"Believe me, I understand your reasoning, but it's flawed," Steve explained. "These days I act as the administrator and tactical advisor for the team, but even with the serum giving me a boost, I'm in no state to go into the field, and this isn't my world anyway."

Still looking at the three Ark leaders, Steve walked forward slightly to place his flesh hand on my shoulder, looking at the three before us with a firm stance. "This is the world that Mockingjay grew up in, and this is the world she has sworn to protect; _she_ is the leader."

"Really?" Kane said, looking at me like he was still trying to decide if he should be incredulous or impressed.

"But… but you're _Captain America_!" Doctor Griffin said, looking at Steve in shock.

"And America isn't here any more," Steve replied solemnly. "I'm proud to say that I brought this team together, but it's not my place to decide what kind of world they should rebuild; if I tried to force them to rebuild America just because it's the world I liked, I'd be no better than Schmidt or Loki, forcing my view on the world when I don't like what I see. Mockingjay lived in this world, so I trust her to know what it needs where it matters the most; whatever you might think of her, _she_ is the leader."

Once again, I was impressed at the respect that Steve could command when he wanted it; these three had only grown up with distant stories of when his team failed, and they still respected him even as he told them to defer to someone else.

"All… all right," Abby said at last, nodding solemnly at the seven Avengers and our small guard as we all sat at the table. "So… who are you all?"

"You've already met Clarke and Mockingjay, of course," Steve said, indicating the two of us before he continued. "Allow me to also introduce Iron Man, Bloodaxe, the Mariner, and She-Hulk."

"She-Hulk?" Abby repeated, looking at Anya in shock. "You-you're a _Hulk_?"

"You never mentioned _that_ -?" Jaha began, looking sharply at Clarke.

"It's new," Clarke and I said almost simultaneously.

"It's a combination of all the residual radiation she and her ancestors have taken into their systems since the war, a transfusion from me, and I think she has a distant blood tie to the original Hulk," Steve put in, even as I looked over at Anya to confirm that she didn't mind us talking about her when she was in the room. "We're as sure as we can be that it's not something that can be passed on, and we didn't set out to change her in that manner, but as long as she's here, she's on the team."

"After all," Johanna said, tapping her metal arm, "when the last gamma-powered psycho we fought did _this_ to me, we'd be stupid to turn down a chance to work with another one."

"A Hulk did that to you?" Kane asked.

"He called himself the Maestro, actually," I put in; I wasn't going to tarnish Bruce's memory any more than Snow had done already. "But yeah, he crushed Johanna's arm in our final battle, and some of our… allies… were able to create that new one."

"One of you lost an arm in your first fight-?" Jaha began.

"And we've since cleared out several remaining enemy strongholds with just the four of us and the occasional 'boost' from Thor," I cut in. "Trust me, we can handle this."

"Thor's alive?" Kane asked, looking at me in surprise.

"He was seen as a god once; even if he's just an advanced alien, the end result is that he doesn't die easily," Finnick smiled. "He's a bit busy back on Asgard these days now that he's king of the place, but he's available if we need an extra oomph."

"And we're going to need that here," I said, looking grimly around the table. "Apart from their known soldiers, the Reapers, and that acid fog thing, we've recently learned the disturbing information that the inhabitants of Mount Weather are creating the Reapers using the blood of Emil Blonsky, AKA the Abomination."

"The who?" Bellamy asked.

"If you've heard of us, I take it you've heard of the Hulk and what he was capable of?" I asked, giving Bellamy a moment to nod in confirmation before I continued. "The Abomination once nearly beat the Hulk to death."

To his credit, Bellamy just blinked at that statement, even if he was clearly shaken at the proclamation.

"So… Mount Weather has their own Hulk?" Jaha asked.

"If they're using his blood to create the Reapers but haven't deployed him against the Coalition yet, I can't be certain he'd be willing to fight for them if he was released, but I equally doubt he'd be willing to fight for us," Steve explained. "When he got his powers, he went on a rampage through a large portion of New York just because he could; we have to assume that he's a threat if things turn ugly, which means we're going to need Anya's strength."

"Which means we're going to need the Grounders to mount this kind of assault," Clarke finished.

"Don't you have your own army?" Jaha asked, looking at the assorted Avengers. "I appreciate that you're… very good at your job, but if your people are more advanced-"

"We're also still working to rebuild an entire social structure after almost a century living under the thumb of a superhuman psychopath," Steve said, indicating his artificial arm. "Believe me, I'd be using every favour I'm owed to get our army over here to help you if I thought it would help, but right now we don't have the resources to spare to go after Mount Weather on that scale.

"Besides," Finnick put in, now leaning back in his chair as he spun his trident in an outstretched hand, "you don't _need_ an army; you've got us."

"Children," Jaha said simply.

"They are 'children' who have already killed a nigh-on indestructible psychopath and been protecting this country for the last few months as an elite strike force," Steve countered. "If you can't respect them, then get out of my sight."

The cold condemnation in Steve's tone was more than enough to put Jaha off his argument, the room sitting in silence for a moment until the former Chancellor of the Ark broke it.

"Look… in the end, respecting local rules isn't the issue here," he said. "If we let a child get slaughtered-"

"OK, you want to start acting all indignant about that, don't shoot a hundred teenagers down to Earth in the first fucking place," Johanna cut in, glaring at Jaha. "You didn't care whether they lived or died _then_ , so don't act like you can start worrying about one just because you've got the space. It's easy to be moral when you've got it easy; the reason Mockingjay there's in charge is because she _never_ took the simple option to save her own ass."

I was so touched by Johanna's sudden statement of faith in me that I suddenly realised that she had even phrased it in the best possible way. I'd tried to play Snow's game when he'd threatened other people, but when it was just me on the line, I'd always stood up to put myself at risk to do what I felt had to be done, whether it was saving Prim, not killing Peeta, or trying to save Peeta, even before I'd become an Avenger.

"Besides," Steve said, "now that you're on the ground, you're going to have to adapt; whatever you thought while you were on the Ark, you're coming here to rejoin society, not to rebuild it."

"He's right," Clarke nodded. "We're just going to piss everyone off if we

"OK, why is nobody saying that we do this the easy way?" Raven suddenly cut in firmly. "We give them Murphy."

" _Excuse_ me?" Bellamy and Murphy said, both glaring over at the injured mechanic.

"They were both there; nobody's going to know the difference-"

" _No_ ," I said firmly, standing up to draw attention to me before Anya could react. "We're not going to save one person by handing over another; if you're going to trade lives like that, you might as well _let_ Mount Weather finish their work."

"What?" Bellamy looked at me in confusion.

"Mockingjay's right," Clarke said, her stance firm despite the tremor in her voice; I had to give her credit for accepting my point despite her emotional investment in this topic. "The whole reason we're rallying against Mount Weather is because they've decided they're more important than us; if we start deciding one life is worth more than another, we're doing what we resent them for."

"And how's what _they're_ asking us to do any better-?"

"Because the Coalition want to avenge those killed by Finn's hand; you just want to hand Murphy over because you don't like him," Steve said, looking solemnly at Raven. "I understand your feelings, Miss Reyes, but that doesn't change the facts of the situation; Finn killed eighteen people of his own free will, and he has to face some kind of punishment for that."

"Couldn't we just… say _we're_ going to put him on trial?" Kane asked uncertainly. "If we punished him ourselves-?"

"My people would not accept that," Anya interjected. "Your judgement of the situation would be doubted given your past views on my people; _we_ must judge him."

"When you already know what the sentence is going to be?" Raven asked bitterly.

"If death has no cost, life has no worth."

"Fair way to look at it," Johanna nodded at Anya before looking at Kane. "No offence, but _I_ wouldn't trust you to be fair right now and I'm trying to like the guy they want to kill."

"You're judging Finn for something he wouldn't-!"

"Believe me, we talked about that back at your base," Johanna continued, her tone unusually solemn as she looked at the younger woman. "We get that he wouldn't have gone that far is he was thinking clearly, but we can't just let him go off scot-free for killing eighteen people because he went a bit nuts."

"I can't send a child to his death-!"

"We're not asking you to," Steve said, looking sympathetically at Abby. "We're asking you to respect the justice system down here and let the Coalition have what they want."

"You're the _Avengers_ ; can't you just-?"

"Our help is not conditional," I said firmly, reaching over to place a hand on Anya's shoulder before she did something we'd all regret later, even as I looked at Kane to make sure he understood what I was about to say. "And Clarke might be on our team now, but so is Anya; we're here to save _both_ of your people from Mount Weather, and that means we aren't going to take sides in this mess when there's a bigger conflict."

"I thought the Avengers were heroes," Raven said, coldly glaring at us. "And you're going to just sit back and let Finn die when you could _save_ him-!"

"We're here to save you all from the threats no conventional force could stand up to," Finnick said, abandoning his usual flippancy as he looked back at Raven. "We get why you're upset, but this is a trial of a convicted criminal by the people who wish to sentence him; it's not our place to get involved in that."

"Nice words," Murphy said, glancing over at Clarke. "Considering that you're with the person who set him off-"

" _Stop_ ," I said, slamming the shield face-down on the table as I stood up, glaring coldly at Murphy. "You do _not_ get to accuse _anyone_ of doing _anything_ but what _they_ are responsible for. Clarke isn't to blame for anyone's actions but her own; even if Finn thinks that he can justify what happened because he was looking for her, he did because he chose to do it."

"Even when he felt he had to?" Bellamy asked.

"Mockingjay and I had an entire nation waiting for one of us to kill the other and we chose to defy their orders," Peeta put in firmly. "We made our choice then, despite the risk; Finn chose to kill those people because it was easier to channel his own frustration against others rather than accept it and wait."

It wasn't how I would have chosen to discuss our past with these people, but looking around the table, I appreciated the new edge of respect in Abby and Kane's eyes as they looked in my direction. Jaha still seemed sceptical, but I was grateful to see that at least two of the people I was trying to talk with appreciated that I knew what I was talking about.

"Believe me, I get why you're upset," Steve said, looking around the room at the three adults. "You thought that you could come down here and repopulate Earth, and instead you're having to integrate into a larger community than you ever believed. All we can do is offer you every apology that we didn't know you were there earlier, and assure you that we're going to do what we can to save your people… but in the end, you need to recognise that you can't just ask for Finn to be spared because you don't like the local customs."

"And would you be saying that if it was one of _you_ down there?" Raven asked.

Whatever response we might have made to that was cut short when the door opened and a guard came in, looking anxiously around the room before his gaze settled on Abby

"He's gone out!"

" _Out_?" Abby repeated, standing up and staring at the guard in shock. "Why-?"

"Hold on a minute…" Finnick said, looking anxiously at his watch. "When we were flying here, we passed over a large group of people; I didn't really clock it at the time as they didn't have anything that could be a threat, but if they kept going at a steady pace…"

"You believe it to be my people?" Anya asked.

"Here and ready for their pound of flesh," Finnick said grimly, before looking back at the guard. "And I take it 'he' is this Finn guy?"

The guard's brief nod was all that was needed for Raven to get to her feet and hobble out of the room as fast as possible, leaving our unofficial guard to hurry after her while the Avengers and I followed at a more gradual pace, Clarke walking between the two groups.

As we emerged from the remnants of the Ark, I was surprised at how dark it had become so quickly; I'd known that we were some distance from any of the Districts, and it had been getting on a bit, but even in the Games or when I was out hunting I'd never been somewhere so devoid of natural light. The Ark was still working on exterior lighting, but the sight outside the gates was easily visible, as various Coalition warriors stood outside, torches in their hands, a young man I recognised as Finn tied to a stake in front of the gate.

"Death by a thousand cuts," Steve said grimly, from his position behind us. "Never struck me as the best way to go."

"What can we do?" Peeta asked, reaching up as though ready to snap his face-plate back into position. "I get that this has to work, but there must be _something_ -"

"Let me try," Clarke said, looking around the group before she focused on Anya and me. "I know what he did, but… he's still one of my people."

Anya stared at Clarke in silence for a moment before she nodded, leaving me to give her a similar nod of confirmation. With that, Clarke turned around and activated her thrusters, flying into the air before coming down on the other side of the wall without even activating her wings. For a moment I worried about what was going to happen, but quickly reminded myself that I had to trust Clarke if our new team was ever going to work; after all the time we'd spent talking about this alliance, she wouldn't try and take Finn away…

As she spoke with a form I thought might be Lexa, I couldn't be sure what she'd said.

As she walked up to the pole where Finn had been tied up, I didn't know what she was going to do.

When she stepped away from the pole with a knife sticking out of Finn's chest, I knew what she'd just done.

I just hoped that enough people in the Coalition would understand it as well…


	17. Forging Alliances

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Walking away from Finn's now-still body, Clarke tried not to think too much about what she'd just done. She'd taken the only action she could find that would spare a friend from suffering further pain because of something he would never have done under normal circumstances, and she had to focus on that, not the fact that Finn was… Finn was…

As she walked through the gates, she didn't even notice who came up to her before she found herself wrapped in comforting arms, Clarke returning the embrace as she sobbed into the figure's shoulder.

"I killed him," she croaked out, voice already hoarse from the scale of the sobs that now wracked her body.

"You set him free," the figure replied, the voice revealing that it was Anya even as Clarke looked up at her, revealing a compassion in the older Avenger's eyes that Clarke had never expected to see in the Grounder leader. "My people will be satisfied."

"They… they will?" Clarke asked, suddenly needing to know that she hadn't just created a new problem.

"Blood has had blood, and I will speak out against any who suggest otherwise," Anya said, her eyes flashing green for a moment before she turned to lead Clarke back into the Ark.

Clarke would analyse later why she felt so comfortable being held by a woman who could literally squeeze her flat with her bare hands; all that mattered now was that Anya was there to keep her safe until she could find somewhere private to cry…

* * *

As the two newest Avengers headed into the main part of the Ark, Raven moved to follow them with enraged tears on her face, but a bow that snapped to full length in front of her cut that plan off before it could start.

"Go near her right now and someone's going to get hurt," Katniss said, looking Raven over with a brief but grim assessment; as much as she sympathised with the mechanic's feelings right now, her team would always come first. "And no offence, but even in her current state, Falcon could easily take you if she was pushed to it."

"Her 'state'?" Raven repeated scathingly. "She _chose_ to kill him-!"

"And what was the alternative?" Finnick asked, stepping in to address the mechanic, as always an intimidating figure despite his slight build and costume. "Kill the Commander and let this pointless scuffle continue in the face of the real enemy? Kill everyone out there who wanted Finn dead and be left with nothing to take on Mount Weather but a few exhausted survivors? I'm sorry, but it was kill Finn now, let him get horribly tortured and _then_ killed, or kill a whole bunch of people and probably have him end up dead anyway; I get wanting another way, but I think it's clear there wasn't one."

"Mariner's right," Katniss said solemnly; in a situation like this, it somehow felt more appropriate to use code names than 'birth' names. "Falcon saved lives because she made an impossible choice; that's what it is to be an Avenger."

"Killing the people who trust you?"

"Saving people where and how we can, even if it's not always pleasant," Katniss countered; she hadn't been forced to face that kind of decision yet, but Steve's stories of some of the old team had focused on the idea that she might face such a decision some day. "Trust me, I wish there had been another way, but there wasn't."

"You don't know-"

"We did," Peeta said, looking firmly at Raven. "You think we just received that ultimatum from the Commander and then came straight here to give you the news? Trust me, we spent some time going over everything Anya had to tell us about her peoples' culture to work out some way around this, and the only alternatives involved killing _more_ people or putting your entire station at risk just to save him. It was let one person get punished by the local legal system, or risk an open war when you've got enough problems in this part of the country already; don't ever think that we liked it, but it was the only thing we could do."

Raven continued to glare at Peeta, but the slumping of her shoulders made it clear that she was resigned to his argument, even if she didn't like to admit it.

"OK," Bellamy put in, stepping forward to look uncertainly at the armoured Avenger. "We've got a truce with the Grounders; now what?"

"We work on a battle plan tomorrow," Johanna put in, indicating the area where Anya had taken Clarke. "Right now, the Falcon needs a few hours to grieve-"

" _Grieve_?" Raven virtually spat. "For someone _she_ killed-"

She was cut short when Johanna drew one of her smaller axes and brandished it under the mechanic's throat, taking a moment to be sure that the other girl registered what was at her neck before she continued.

"If you haven't been in a position where someone you know and like is facing probably certain death, _don't_ go there," the District Seven Victor said firmly. "I've been stuck in two different competitions where it was expected that I'd work with some people and end up killing them at the end if I wanted to get out of there alive, and that was just if I was lucky enough to survive the opening bloodbath; when you're in a position where it's kill one person or risk a lot more dying, you have to make the call."

"Point made, Bloodaxe," Katniss said, shooting a firm stare at the one-armed Avenger as Anya came out of the Ark, an oddly thoughtful expression on her face.

"How is she?" Peeta asked, stepping over to look curiously at She-Hulk.

"Resting," Anya replied. "She is currently with her mother."

"That's good," Katniss said, nodding at Anya before she indicated the gate. "So, now that the issue of Finn's out the way… maybe we can talk to the Commander about the next plan?"

"Now he's-?" Raven began, before Finnick reached up and squeezed an area by Raven's neck, catching her as she slumped to the ground.

"Little martial arts trick I picked up at the Academy," he explained, as the rest of the Avengers looked at him in surprise. "It's not flashy enough for the Games, so it isn't used often, but the instructors recognised that sometimes you need something that does a quiet job rather than a cool one."

"Games?" Bellamy repeated.

"Believe me, you _don't_ want to know right now," Peeta said, before looking back at Katniss. "You and She-Hulk see what the commander thinks about this; the rest of us will… keep things calm here."

Nodding in acknowledgement at Peeta, Katniss glanced over at Anya before heading out of the Ark camp, the newest Avenger close behind her; if she was going to continue negotiations, Anya would be the best candidate to make sure she didn't say the wrong thing.

The She-Hulk might be the newest Avenger, but she and Clarke were fitting into the role so comfortably it sometimes amazed Katniss that they hadn't even known these women existed last week.

As they walked through the crowd, Anya noted the stares the two of them were receiving from the rest of the _skaikru_ , but chose to ignore it; with her new abilities, getting angry would accomplish nothing but cause greater fear, and if these people could help hers end the threat of the _maunon_ , she would not be the one to jeopardise that chance.

Looking at the young woman walking beside her, Anya wondered once again what it was about Mockingjay and Clarke that inspired respect so easily. Lexa had already had a great deal of presence even before she was chosen by the Spirit of the Commander, but somehow these two women, each younger than Lexa, nevertheless commanded a presence that caught the attention and respect of others in vastly different ways. While the woman she was coming to think of as the Falcon captured Anya's interest in her genuine desire to avoid death and find peace- even when Anya had been deliberately provoking her, she could see that Clarke genuinely didn't want to have to kill anyone- Mockingjay, for all her youth, had a strength of will about her that made it almost impossible not to admire her even if it was hard to define why or how she did it.

If she truly commanded the respect of a being that could be a god, Anya could understand what that god might have seen in the Mockingjay that was worth following; she commanded attention simply by acting on the spot…

* * *

As they finally approached Lexa's tent, Anya brought her thoughts to focus on the present; she and Lexa might enjoy a closer relationship than other tribal leaders, given Lexa's former role as her Second, but that didn't mean that she could afford to be too casual when faced with a meeting like this. Once the two Avengers- a term that Anya was becoming more appreciative of every time she thought about it- were shown into the tent, Lexa dismissed her guards with a wave of her hand, looking contemplatively between the two women standing in front of her before she spoke.

"Did you instruct her to do that?"

"The Falcon made her choice," Katniss said firmly.

"You present yourself as their leader-"

"But I'm _not_ their dictator," Katniss countered. "I expect my team to follow my orders, but I don't expect to have to order them to think; they can all make their own decisions, so long as they don't do anything I wouldn't fundamentally approve of."

"Which includes?"

"Attacking each other, using their abilities against the innocent, or aiding anyone who would treat innocent lives as things," Katniss said firmly. "We're here to ensure that the human race can rise up and lead itself without someone else trying to enforce their view; we're not here to dictate terms or take control. All we want to do is face the threats that nobody else could handle; after the threat of Mount Weather is over, you never have to see us again if you don't want to."

"And what of you, Anya?" Lexa asked, turning to look at her former mentor. "You serve this woman of your own will?"

" _Sha, Heda_ ," Anya nodded. "I have already felt the power that is now part of me when I changed for the first time, and I am satisfied that I can best use this power working with these… Avengers… rather than as part of the Coalition."

"Even if I ordered you to return to us as leader of your tribe?"

"My tribe has been decimated by our battle with the Skaikru," Anya admitted grimly; there was no shame in admitting that they had fallen to superior tactics and weapons in what had been a more balanced fight, as opposed to the mountain simply taking their people with no explanation. "No matter what we attempt, there will be too few of my people left to make it worth our while re-establishing my camp; I will remain with the Avengers, if you wish?"

Lexa studied the two women for a moment, until she nodded in acceptance.

"Very well," she said, looking at Anya with a slight smile. "If you feel that you can find a clan with these… Avengers… I see no reason to deprive you of the opportunity."

" _Sha, Heda_ ," Anya nodded.

"OK," Katniss said, after waiting a moment to confirm that nobody else had something to say, "with that sorted, I think it's only fair we let you know what we're bringing to this campaign."

"Aside from the power that Anya now possesses and the man in armour I witnessed earlier?"

"Exactly," Katniss said, reaching behind her back to present her shield to Lexa. "For example, I'm regarded as the best archer of my generation, but I've also been trusted with this shield, which is able to absorb any force thrown against it no matter how strong it is."

"There are two others you have not met yet," Anya said, as Lexa took the shield from Katniss to examine it thoughtfully. "A man they call the Mariner, who possesses a powerful trident that can act as a long-range weapon as well as a tool for hand-to-hand combat, and a woman known as Bloodaxe, who wields a powerful axe that I am told can pierce anything but this shield, and also has a metal arm."

"A metal arm?"

"Her original arm was crushed by our first adversary, so we… made her a new one," Katniss explained, hoping that Lexa wouldn't ask for too many details; she was aware of the key points of how Johanna's arm worked, but would the Coalition have enough background knowledge to understand anything she could tell them?

"And these are all your forces?" Lexa asked.

"The Avengers are primarily intended as an emergency strike force rather than a sustained army; we hit hard and fast using exceptional force and skill against equally exceptional opponents," Katniss explained. "Actually, we do have another member, but he's… well, he has other responsibilities, so he isn't always available to help us unless it's a serious emergency."

"Is that likely?" Lexa asked.

"And when will I meet him?" Anya put in.

"When he's needed," Katniss said, before she sighed. "Which… might actually be sooner than we'd like."

"Why?"

"Our… healer… discovered something about the Reapers when we were treating Lincoln," Katniss explained. "When we were examining him, we learned that the transformation into Reapers is aided by blood samples taken from an individual we call 'the Abomination'."

"The Abomination?" Lexa asked.

"Basically, he's the product of the same kind of experiments that gave Anya's ancestor his own abilities," Katniss explained. "Two hundred years ago, a soldier exposed himself to blood taken from the man we know as the Hulk with the goal of acquiring his power, only to be transformed into an exceptionally powerful being with a passion for destruction and the power to match it."

"Two centuries?" Lexa repeated, looking sceptically at the Avengers' leader. "No being could live so long-"

"They speak the truth," Anya put in. "I was shown moving images of what this 'Abomination' was capable of when he was first created, and they have shared… many details about what this transformation has done to him. I do not know for certain if they tell the truth about his continued existence, but if this being they call the Abomination still exists and possesses the power that he did then, we shall require the Avengers to defeat him."

"You speak the truth?" Lexa asked, looking curiously at Katniss.

"No offence, but if we were lying, wouldn't we come up with something slightly less outrageous than this?" Katniss pointed out. "We'll do what we can, but the mountain is going to be a problem for my team even without the Abomination as part of the equation; we're going to need every asset you can spare, and we need a few days to work out our next move."

"You have not defined your plan yet?"

"We've been a bit busy making sure we're clear on the stakes of the situation we're in at the moment; we can't afford to just dive in and start swinging or shooting," Katniss explained. "We can cure the Reapers, and that's a start at weakening what they have to throw at us, but that still leaves us with the issue of getting into the Mountain and past their defences."

"If you are as powerful as you say-"

"I will _not_ countenance mass murder until I know there's no other option," Katniss cut in. "What's been done to your people is wrong, but I'm not going to condemn everyone in that mountain until I know for sure they all enjoyed or approved of what they were doing to you. We need your people to work out what we're up against, we all need Clarke's people to use their inside men to work out what we can do once we're in the bunker, and you all need us to actually mount any kind of effective attack against them."

Her 'leader tone' was something Katniss still felt she needed practise with when she was talking to anyone outside those who already knew and respected her as more than just the Mockingjay of the rebellion, but as Lexa looked at her with a slight hint of respect, the archer was surprised to see just how genuine that respect was.

This whole plan was a risk, but as she looked over at Anya, who had started out hostile to her other new teammate and had just shown Clarke a great deal of compassion over what had to be a controversial decision for her people…

Katniss was starting to hope that they might just be able to pull this off.


	18. When Thunder Rolls

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Looking around the ever-expanding army in our new training field, I had to admit that I was impressed at how far we'd come.

A sneak attack spearheaded by the Avengers was still our best chance of victory, but if Mount Weather had the kind of resources we believed they did, we had to give them more to 'worry' about if we were going to get inside undetected until we were ready to strike. While Lexa still appeared slightly displeased that we weren't committing more resources to this fight ourselves, she seemed to have accepted our reasoning that we had too much going on in our territory to risk provoking Mount Weather into escalating what they were willing to use against us.

Fortunately, with Anya's support and Lexa's own agreement with our plan of attack, getting the Coalition to work with us as we trained was actually fairly simple. They were still uncomfortable at the thought of using some of the Ark's weapons, most likely due to the similarities between those and what the 'Mountain Men' had been using against them for so many years, but they seemed to be willing to accept the Arkers fighting alongside them.

The only real challenge was working out how best to use the team in the final confrontation. Finnick had quickly proven his worth against the Grounders in a practise fight- considering that he was the 'weakest' of the team by their standards, it made sense for him to prove our mettle to any doubters- but that still left me to work out how best to divide up our resources when the time came to mount our assault. We needed to get someone inside Mount Weather to shut down some of its defences without endangering any innocent people in there who didn't approve of what their government was doing, and I knew that I was only willing to trust the Avengers with that kind of responsibility, but the challenge lay in working out who would be the best choice.

Obviously Peeta and Johanna were out, as Peeta still wasn't that capable in a fight without his armour and Johanna's arm would raise too many questions if we 'faked' being captured (and it would take too long to try and take the arm off just to let her sneak in), but after that it was hard to be sure who I could send. Clarke and Anya were obviously my top choices, since they would know their way around the mountain already, but I wasn't comfortable ordering them to do something like that unless I was sure it was the best option, considering what they'd been through last time they were in there. On an emotional level, I wanted to go in myself rather than put any of the team at risk, but on a practical level I wished we had some plans of the system so that I could find out if it might be possible to sneak Prim into the mountain, given her greater skills at stealth. As much as I wanted to protect Prim, I had to acknowledge that she was determined to help out as an Avenger, and I couldn't exactly help her grow by stopping her doing anything she really wanted to do…

In the end, the best thing I could do was wait and see how the training unfolded before I came to a definite decision. We'd had a couple of crash-test sessions with Clarke and Anya, but this was still basically our first time working with our new members in a prolonged session, so this was helping the Avengers develop our own working dynamic as well as working with the Ark residents and the Coalition.

The only complication to the plan so far had been the former Ark Chancellor's decision to leave the Ark with a small group as part of his own quest, but I wasn't particularly concerned about him. Our numbers might be small, but we weren't so limited that the loss of the few people who'd gone with ex-Chancellor Jaha would have that much impact on our plans, and his own dismissive attitude towards the 'Grounders' had done little to endear the man to me, so it was probably for the best that he'd taken himself and his issues out of the picture to follow his own quest. Once we'd dealt with the main problem, I might send Peeta after them to see if they were all right and to investigate the rumours of the 'City of Light' that had captured Jaha's interest, but right now we had more immediate concerns.

Looking at our small training field, I was actually impressed at how quickly we'd come together. After relocating our hovercraft to an area a short distance from the crashed Ark so that we wouldn't have to worry about collateral damage while training, Steve had settled in to act as a coordinator for our primary training efforts, leaving me to directly supervise the current training session while he went over everything Clarke had been able to give him about the internal structure of Mount Weather; whether we got someone inside or not, it couldn't hurt to cover all the angles.

We'd already had a few lessons with the Coalition, but I'd soon concluded that it would be a good idea for the team to get some practise with each other as well, especially when Clarke and Anya were still new to the team dynamic. Clarke was currently engaging in hand-to-hand combat practise with Johanna and Finnick at the same time, getting used to her harness and its weapons while also improving her skills at more conventional combat from her current level of 'talented amateur', while Peeta was fighting with Anya as the only available Avenger who could even hope to match her in a fight. As with most of his group training sessions, Peeta was under orders not to use his repulsors and just engage Anya in hand-to-hand combat, but I had also instructed Anya to try and watch her strength and try something more sophisticated; power might be useful, but there were times when we wouldn't want to just hit everything really hard.

Privately, I just hoped that we weren't putting too much on Anya too fast; she might have accepted our offer of membership because we had offered to help her use her new power, but she was starting to experience the isolation of that role in a manner that I wasn't sure she or the Coalition would like that much…

" _Hey_!" Peeta said, his voice drawing me back to the present as I looked over at where he was sparring with the transformed Anya, his face-place raised as he indicated his dented left gauntlet while glaring at the green-skinned ex-thief. "We agreed that you'd watch your strength, remember?"

"I cannot hurt you-"

"That doesn't mean this is _easy_ to fix, you know!" Peeta countered. "I get that you don't understand the technical details, but it takes a lot of effort to keep this thing going-"

"Are you implying-?" Anya began in a threatening tone.

" _Enough_!" I yelled, charging over to the two before it could go any further, my shield held out in front of Anya before she could do anything. "Look, I get that we're all working on this, but we need to have _patience_ here; turning on each other because we're annoyed isn't going to stop the bigger problem!"

"But-!"

"Peeta, you need to recognise that Anya's still adjusting, and Anya, you need to take more care," I said firmly. "I get that Peeta's armour isn't the best match-up for you, but we don't have anything better right now-"

The sound of lightning striking on the outskirts of the field prompted all of us to look sharply in that direction, but the three ex-Victors and I relaxed as we registered the sight of a familiar fair-haired figure in silver armour and a red cloak, looking at us with a slight smile.

"Who the… is that _Thor_?" Clarke asked, grinning at the sight of the last active original Avenger.

"That's Thor," I confirmed, looking at her with a smile. "Didn't quite believe it, huh?"

"I… well, I didn't doubt you, but…"

"It's OK, I get it; there's still a few people back home who doubt that he's real even after seeing him in action," I said reassuringly before I led the group over to Thor as he walked out of the Bifrost circle, smiling as the King of Asgard clasped my arm in the now-familiar 'warrior's grip' of Asgard. "Good to see you, Thor."

"As it is to see you, Mockingjay," Thor replied, looking over the rest of the team with a smile before his gaze settled on the two unfamiliar faces. "And these are?"

"This is Clarke Griffin and Anya; they're… well, they're on the team."

"I see," Thor said, briefly assessing Clarke's harness and costume before his gaze fixed on Anya, her skin still green as she looked at him with a certain tension in her stance. "And how did this happen?"

"Steve thinks that Anya's a distant descendant of Doctor Banner's cousin, which means that she inherited… whatever let him turn into the Hulk after she received a blood transfusion from Steve after a lifetime of being exposed to some of the energy that changed Doctor Banner…" I explained, shrugging at Thor's quizzical expression. "Hey, you know I'm not that hot on the science stuff; that's what we have the team for!"

"Indeed," Thor smiled at me in understanding before turning to Clarke. "It is a pleasure to meet those who have been judged worthy of Avengers membership; which District are you from?"

"Oh, we're not from Panem," Clarke replied, looking at Thor with a slight smile. "We came from a space station-"

"The _Ark_?" Thor interjected sharply.

"You knew about that?" Peeta looked at Thor in surprise.

"I… heard rumours, but I paid little attention to them before I left Earth; I believe Stark considered it as a… worst-case scenario…" Thor said, his manner calming down even as his expression appeared strangely tense. I wondered at the shift in his mood for a moment, but svoon decided that it wasn't my concern. Once he'd returned to the fold on a regular basis, Thor was always so awkward and ashamed about the fact that he'd abandoned Earth after being defeated by the Maestro in their first clash that I never felt comfortable pushing him on certain topics if he was clearly uncomfortable discussing them, and even Johanna had come to recognise that pushing him on that issue wouldn't get anyone anywhere.

"OK, that's not important," I said, waving a hand to encourage the other Avengers not to ask Thor for anything else right now; Thor might have left Earth because he genuinely felt as though we didn't deserve saving, but unlike some of the Capitol citizens who'd neglected us because they didn't care, he'd stepped in to help when he was really needed, so there was no point blaming him for the past. "The important thing is that you're here now; I can fill you in while we head down to the Ark."

"The Ark is here?"

"It… crash-landed," Clarke shrugged awkwardly, indicating the shattered former satellite. "The life-support systems were running down and all the Exodus ships had been lost in an earlier accident; the only way to get anyone down was to send all the Ark's components heading to the ground and hope enough of them came down fairly intact."

"I see," Thor said, his manner solemn as he took in the sight ahead of us, before he placed Mjolnir on his side and began to walk down towards the camp.

Shrugging at this turn of events, I walked off after him, the others falling in step behind me. I thought for a moment about letting Steve know we were leaving, but decided it wasn't worth worrying about; he had to focus on going over our possible battle plans right now, and the hovercraft's cameras should let him know where we had gone if he hadn't seen it already. I noticed Clarke looking curiously at Thor as we walked down the hill, but she apparently decided that silence would be better for the moment; knowing Clarke, she was probably going to try and talk to Thor once the immediate introductions at the Ark had been dealt with.

Walking into the camp, I was grateful to see that things seemed to be relatively calm between the Coalition and the Ark. There were some areas where both groups were clearly making a deliberate effort to ignore each other, but there were more where small groups were trying to train together. Even if the Coalition were clearly the superior fighters when it came to hand-to-hand combat, it looked like the Ark had managed to preserve some of the more sophisticated martial arts after they were permanently 'exiled' to space, even if a few of the guards used less force than I might have expected.

"Impressive," Thor said, a guarded tone to his voice that I tried not to think about too much; whatever the reason for his discomfort, it couldn't affect his performance as an Avenger…

"Who the hell is this?"

"Octavia," I sighed, as I turned to look at the woman who was apparently the only sibling born on the Ark for decades, "this is Thor, the last member of our team; he's here to help-"

"Oh, so he's _another_ one of your 'heroes' who's happy to sit around and play while our people are dying-"

"Hey, if you think it's _easy_ to control this thing, be my guest," Clarke cut in, stepping forward to glare at Octavia. "I get that you're worried, but diving into the mountain without a plan will just get everyone killed faster; we're doing the best we can-"

"And our people are _dying_ -!"

"You can't solve every problem by just charging in and hitting it, O," Johanna put in, indicating her arm. "The last time we fought a powerhouse without a real plan, I had this arm shattered and we only got out alive by a total fluke; when it's your people at stake I'd think you'd appreciate that we're being careful."

"I spent my entire life having to be _careful_ ; when do I get to _live_ it?" Octavia spat, storming off to another part of the camp. As she brushed past Thor, I thought I saw a blue spark of something leave Mjolnir, but I quickly dismissed that as a trick of the light; maybe something Octavia was wearing had scraped against the hammer somehow.

"She's… had a rough life," Clarke shrugged awkwardly at us.

"We've all been there," Finnick shrugged. "OK, probably not the same way she has, but believe me, we all get that life can suck sometimes."

"Not much we can do for her now but deal with this mess and hope she feels better once it's over," Johanna shrugged, indicating the main 'building' of the Ark. "Let's go."

Acknowledging Johanna's point, I led the team into the main body of the Ark, smiling politely as I walked into the council chamber with Abby and Kane sitting around it, looking up as though they'd been caught in the middle of a conversation.

"Ah, Chancellor Griffin," I smiled at Clarke's mother as she and Kane stood up to stare curiously at us. "Sorry to barge in, but I thought you'd appreciate an introduction to our other surviving original Avenger, King Thor of Asgard."

"Chancellor," Thor nodded at the doctor.

"…Thor?" Abby said, looking at him incredulously.

"As in the Norse God?" Kane added, matching Abby's incredulity. "You mean… you weren't just some guy in a suit?"

"I was," Thor looked at Kane in surprise. "I wore Asgardian armour and wielded Mjolnir for my power, although Stark possessed an advanced suit of technological armour-"

"Let's… not get into that right now," I cut in before the conversation could become more difficult; I could clarify that Thor's powers weren't just technological once Mount Weather wasn't a problem. "The point is that we're all working together right now, so I thought it would be a good idea to let you know that we had another Avenger available to help us…"

My voice trailed off as a thought occurred to me, and I couldn't believe I hadn't realised this earlier.

"Thor," I said, looking anxiously at the original Avenger, "I know you need to wield Mjolnir to tap into your _full_ power… but you're still fairly strong without it, right?"

"Indeed," Thor nodded at me. "Why do you ask?"

"Well-" I began, before a loud yell from outside cut me off; the Ark might have survived for years in space, but after the damage it had sustained while landing certain parts of the hull were fragile enough to let in any particularly loud sounds. With no idea what had caused that call but also certain that it couldn't be good, I turned around and ran back through the Ark's corridors for the entrance, the rest of the team just behind. As I emerged from the Ark, I heard another yell, but it didn't take long to trace the source, as I realised that everyone around the crashed station was watching as a woman I recognised as Indra from Anya's description of other Coalition generals flew through the air, forced upwards by…

"Huh?" I said, lost for a better reaction as I realised that Octavia Blake was standing where Indra had apparently started, her hand outstretched in a manner that made it clear she'd just thrown a punch.

In other words, Octavia Blake, a woman that I had barely spoken to and who was only remarkable for being part of the only siblings on the Ark, had somehow acquired superhuman strength.

"Was that… _Octavia_?" Clarke asked, looking between her friend and the thrown Indra in shock.

"OK, I know we're getting to know you people, but that isn't something you already knew she could do, right?" Finnick asked.

"No!" Clarke protested, as Octavia knelt on the ground, staring at her hands in shock. "I just… she's coped well with life down here, but I didn't know she could do anything like _that_!"

"Impossible…"

"What?" I looked curiously over at Thor, who was looking at Octavia as though she was something he'd never seen before. "Thor, is something-?"

"NO!" Thor yelled, storming past us to place a hand on Octavia's shoulder before raising his hammer to the sky. " _Heimdell_!"

"Hey, wait a minute-!" Johanna began, charging forward to grab Thor's arm just as the brilliant light of the Bifrost struck Mjolnir before spreading out over the ground around the Asgardian king, the light vanishing to leave only the strange runic circular pattern on the ground where Thor, Octavia and Johanna had been moments ago.

"OK," Clarke said, turning to look at me in confusion, "what the _Hell_ just happened?"

"Thor… just took Octavia and Johanna to Asgard," I said, lost for anything better to say as I tried to process what had just happened.

Thor might be King of Asgard, but after all the times he'd made it clear that he would defer to my authority when dealing with any issues on Earth, I had to believe that he wouldn't have grabbed Octavia like that unless he had a very good reason… the only question was what that reason actually _was_.

Of course, considering that she was armed with what was possibly the only weapon my team had that would be able to hurt an Asgardian, I also had to hope that Johanna's temper wouldn't prompt her to do anything stupid…


	19. Avengers on Asgard

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: Parts of this chapter were written with the assistance of David Knight, who inspired a key plot twist that will be revealed in this chapter; hope you like it

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Johanna had heard a few stories from Thor and Steve about what it was like to travel through the Bifrost, but the actual experience was still the most incredible thing she'd ever seen. As she literally flew upwards, her artificial hand's tight grip on Jarnbjorn the only thing that kept her where she was, she watched the rainbow-patterned lights flashing around her, accompanied by brief glimpses of various landscapes ranging from some kind of ice field to a more conventional farm, before the lights vanished and she found herself staggering forwards in a large round room, a tall dark-skinned man in gold armour looking probingly at them.

"Heimdell-" Thor began, before he turned around and registered the presence of his fellow Avengers. "Lady Johanna? What are-?"

"Hey, you abduct a friend of one of our new members and think nobody's going to worry about her?" Johanna countered, adjusting her grip on Jarnbjorn as she stared the Asgardian king down. "I get that you've got your reasons, but I've got a big axe and I don't like it when the big guy thinks they can do whatever they want; you got a problem with that?"

"I would not recommend arguing with this woman, my king," the man who was apparently said, looking thoughtfully at Johanna. "She has endured great hardship at the hands of those who considered themselves her superiors even before she suffered her most obvious loss…"

"OK, can you people _please_ stop talking about me as though I'm not here and tell me _what the hell is going on_?" Octavia yelled, looking indignantly at the two strangers before her gaze settled on the only Avenger here she knew. "What… what just happened to me?"

"Long story short?" Johanna shrugged. "Congrats, Miss Blake; you've made it to the place where gods hang out."

She wasn't surprised when Octavia merely blinked at that statement.

"Excuse me?" she said.

"You are in Asgard, Octavia Blake," Thor put in. "The jewel of the Nine Realms, guardian of all the others, and my own kingdom; I have brought you here because… to be blunt, I have questions that must be answered."

"Questions about what?"

"We knew that, we wouldn't need to be here," Johanna pointed out, before she smiled and nudged Octavia's side with her real arm as she indicated the view outside the room. "But hey, long as we're here, I say enjoy the view and roll with it while they're running a few tests."

Under normal circumstances, Johanna felt that Octavia would have had a few questions about what kind of tests Johanna was talking about, but when the girl saw the sight of Asgard spread out before them, it was easy to see that she had other things to think about. Johanna might have become fairly jaded about beautiful things since she'd first seen the Capitol and realised that everyone in it was waiting for her to kill or die, but with the knowledge that she knew the guy who ran this place, it was easier to appreciate the wonder and scale of Asgard as Thor led them along the gleaming bridge to the main palace.

* * *

Speechless.

That's how Octavia felt the moment she walked out of that chamber and started walking rainbow colored bridge of glass, seeing a vast star filled space to either side. Yet forward was a vast, majestic city off to the horizon.

An actual city; not the ruins of one that she saw on Earth but a city with golden towers taller than she could imagine stretching into the sky. It was all so majestic it felt like a dream. The closest thing she had to compare how she felt now was when she stepped out of the drop ship and became the first person from the Ark to touch the earth.

"Care to fill me in on why you dragged our little witch all the way up here?" Octavia's musings were interrupted by Bloodaxe's voice.

"I have a theory that must be confirmed."

"A 'theory'," Johanna repeated, looking pointedly at the Asgardian king, Octavia only able to watch in silent uncertainty as the two Avengers discussed her. "And you could only check this 'theory' by taking some girl all the way to your world which is somewhere else in some weird way I can't even really think about without getting a headache?"

"You will understand if I am right."

"Take your word for it," Johanna shrugged out of a lack of anything else to do.

"I don't," Octavia spoke up, looking at Thor when she said that. "Can't imagine how people are going to react to what you just pulled, but I sure as hell know my brother is going react."

"You have a brother?" Thor asked, sounding curious. "I thought no one on the Ark had siblings."

Octavia let out a mirthless chuckle. "No. Bell and I are the only ones and we aren't even full siblings. We both had different fathers, same mother. Our last name Blake, we get that from her."

"Ah."

For a moment, Octavia thought that Johanna was going to say something, but the chance was lost when the three of them were suddenly surrounded by a group of men and women wearing either robes or some kind of medieval-looking armour.

"My lord?" one of the men in robes said, looking curiously at the two humans. "What is-?"

"I have questions about Octavia Blake that must be answered," Thor said, indicating the woman in question. "Johanna Mason is here as her friend and guardian; I shall attend to immediate matters of state and will join you momentarily."

"You what-?" Octavia began.

"Word of advice; don't yell at the king," Johanna said, grabbing Octavia's arm with her metal one to reinforce the point before she smiled politely at the robed man. "Lead on."

"He can't just drag me up here and then-"

"Did you miss the 'king' part of what we just talked about?" Johanna asked, as the two Earth women began to follow the gathering of Asgardians while Thor twirled his hammer and flew upwards. "Besides, we can't exactly follow him when he's doing _that_."

"Yeah, that's you all over, isn't it?" Octavia shot a frustrated glare at the other woman. "Get us all worked up, and leave other people to do your work…"

"OK, seriously, what's with the attitude; I thought you liked us?"

"I liked the _original_ Avengers because they got things done," Octavia countered. "What have you actually done since you met us, apart from giving Clarke a fancy jetpack and everyone else a lot of fancy promises?"

"Hey, toppling a bunch of paranoids with a massive ego in one of the most secure facilities on the planet isn't something you can just _do_ , you know!" Johanna countered. "Believe me, I'd love it if everything came down to a swing of my axe and the bad guy's dead, but we've got a bunch of people in that mountain whose only crime could be that their leaders are a bunch of dicks who didn't give them an option; we just want to find some way to stop the Mountain that _doesn't_ get those people killed at the same time!"

"Yeah, keep making excuses for holding back; it's not like you've ever lost your family-"

Octavia's opinion of her reflexes was swiftly readjusted when she found herself lying on the rainbow bridge with the large axe practically collaring her neck, the other woman glaring at her with such intense hatred that Octavia suddenly understood how she'd earned the name 'Bloodaxe'.

"I not only lost my family four years ago, but I spent those years forced to live with the knowledge that they died because I told the ruler of my country where he could stick his plans to make me a goddamn _prostitute_ after I had to kill kids my age just to come home," the Avenger said, the axe pressing down so hard that Octavia almost thought she heard something crack to her side. "The next time you _dare_ to say I don't understand what it's like to lose family, I'll make sure you lose something important when I bring this axe down."

There was nothing that Octavia could say to that statement that wouldn't sound weak to her ears, so she simply nodded awkwardly at the other woman.

"Good," Johanna said, removing the axe from her neck and helping Octavia back to her feet, wincing slightly as she released her grip on the other girl. "Is that bridge cold?"

"What?"

"Your hand just felt a bit chilly…" Johanna began, before she shrugged dismissively and turned to the other Asgardians, who were looking at the two Earth natives with uncertain stares. "What? We had things to talk about."

* * *

Standing alongside Octavia as she hovered in what Johanna could only think of as a red energy version of that first-prep make-up table from back in the Games, she wondered what exactly Thor was looking for. She appreciated that she wasn't exactly the best Avenger to bring along on a mission where any kind of high science was required, considering that she even relied on other people to do anything with her arm if it so much as twitched in a manner she hadn't asked it to, but she knew enough to gather that this thing was some kind of scanner like that 'MRI' thing Steve had dug up for the Avengers' medical facility back at their compound, and these people were definitely concerned about whatever it was they'd found.

This was one moment when Johanna supposed she should be grateful she'd never been a normal girl; she appreciated new sights, but when she had a mission to focus on, she wasn't going to worry too much about the fact that she'd been cheated of the chance to look around Asgard. She could probably talk Thor into giving the Avengers a proper tour at some later date, but right now, her main concern was that her new charge was all right.

"Problem?" Octavia asked, looking impatiently around at the various Asgardians running their hands over the energy surrounding her.

"Oddity," the woman who seemed to be in charge corrected.

"What kind of 'oddity'?" Johanna asked, not expecting the answer to be something she could understand but feeling obligated to ask anyway.

"Is it what I expected?" a familiar voice cut in.

"You're back already?" Johanna asked, looking at Thor in surprise as he walked into the room. "I thought you said-"

"As king of the greatest of the Nine Realms, I must be prepared to deal with any matters of state that arise when I am available, but I also make sure that my advisors are prepared to deal with most of those when I come to Midgard," Thor clarified, smiling slightly at Johanna before he turned to the woman. "I apologise for the interruption, but I must know; is it what I expected?"

"It is," the woman said, waving her hand to disperse the red energy web that held Octavia in the air, sending her gently back to the ground below her. "What I cannot understand is how this could have happened-"

"How _what_ could have happened?" Octavia asked, swinging her legs over the side of the 'table' as she looked impatiently at Thor. "What's happening to me?"

"That is a complex story, but I believe I know who can provide us with the answers you seek," Thor said, indicating another door in the room. "Come with me, and I shall explain."

Lost for anything better to do, Johanna shrugged and walked off after Thor, Octavia falling into step beside her as they moved further into the palace. Johanna noted three vastly different men- one who looked like an older, grimmer Monty, one with blonde hair and a dashing edge to his manner, and one with a thick beard and a thicker belly- give Thor warm smiles as he walked past them, but otherwise the walk was a simple stroll through the palace.

Under other circumstances, Johanna might have asked who those men were, but it was clear that they had more urgent priorities right now. As they began to walk down the stairs, she started to develop a theory about where they were going, but it wasn't until they walked into a room filled with large white rooms with transparent walls that Johanna's theory was confirmed.

It wasn't the same as what they had back on Earth, but if this wasn't a prison, Johanna would eat her remaining organic arm.

"Wait here," Thor said, holding out a hand to the two women before he walked towards a particular cell.

Looking at the man inside, Johanna noted that, for a prisoner, it looked at least like he was housed humanely, even if the only furniture was a bed, a table with two chairs, and a bookshelf. The prisoner himself was a dark haired man dressed in green clothes, his hair long in a manner that could have been a stylistic choice or simply the lack of a barber, as well as an edge to his eyes that put Johanna in mind of some strange combination of Gloss and one of the morphlings in the Quarter Quell.

"Almost twenty years since we saw each other last," the man said, looking up from his book with a slight smirk as he registered Thor's approach. "You told me it was the last time before you had your guards drag me down to these cells. What has happened that the Almighty King Thor has come down to greet me?"

Johanna had to wonder why they'd come all this way to see someone who was far too smug for a guy who'd been a prisoner for almost twenty years. If he'd been in this cell for as long or longer than Octavia had been alive, what could he possibly know about her situation?

"The Maestro is dead."

The prisoner's smirk dropped for a moment, his eyes widened as he looked at the King closer, nothing the hammer at his side. "You have Mjolnir once more," he said in a more subdued voice. "You would only be able to carry it if you were worthy again." He looked past Thor, seeing the two women behind him. "And you must be, because you have brought humans with you. That's a far cry from the brother I last remember. You could not care less to help them."

Johanna listened to those words, but Octavia's eyes widened as she realised who they were addressing before Johanna could.

"Brother?" she said, looking at Thor in shock. "This is Loki, the guy who led that alien army that tried to conquer Earth?"

"I'm still of the mind it would have been better than the nuclear hell that came later; I wouldn't have scorched the planet," Loki said offhandedly. "So brother, why have you come down here, and with two girls from Earth? Are they your new pets?"

If Thor was angered by his brother's comments he didn't show it. "Johanna is a fellow Avenger and a friend. And my other guest, Octavia Blake isn't from Earth, not originally. She comes from the Ark."

The reference to Johanna as an Avenger had prompted nothing from Loki but a curious raising of his eyebrows, but when Thor mentioned the Ark, Loki's entire body shook, as if having a physical reaction to the name. His posture and stance became unguarded as he looked at Octavia with new eyes. The range of emotions playing on his face were varied but none were of the smugness or arrogance they had seen since they first walked into the prison. "...impossible..."

"What is your problem?" Octavia asked, unable to fathom this sudden turn.

"He sees what I saw in you, that and more," Thor responded, making Octavia hate this cryptic runaround she had been given. He looked to Loki once more. "The tests that we ran on you, it confirmed what I had suspected. You have Frost Giant blood, Jotun blood, running through you along with your human blood."

"Wait a minute, you're saying she's half human?" Johanna asked. "How's that possible? Last I checked, the Ark didn't exactly have any guests up there; how could she be _half_ human on a space station that only had humans on it? "

"Because I was there."

Octavia's head snapped back to the cell, her entire attention now on Loki. "I was there, for three years, in hiding from my brother. I look at you, my child, and I see Aurora looking back at me."

"How..." Octavia breathed, her voice trembling as much as her body felt like shaking. "How do you know my mother? How can you..." The realization started to dawn her and yet she couldn't even voice it. She couldn't believe it to even be possible.

And yet Thor was the one to confirm what she already knew to be true. "Octavia Blake, allow me to properly introduce you to my brother. Loki of Asgard and Jotunheim. Your father."


	20. Adapting Plans

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

"Right," I said, lost for anything better to say as I looked around at the remaining members of my team, the five of us sitting in a small tent in the camp that was rapidly being established around the Ark. "It's been a few hours now, so we can assume that Thor and Johanna are fairly busy with… whatever they're doing… up in Asgard. Until they get back and we're back to full strength, our first priority has to be making sure that we've got our defences worked out for the base and that Mount Weather doesn't know what we're capable of."

"Defences?" Anya repeated curiously. "We have seen no sign of the Mountain Men since we met you-"

"Which doesn't mean they haven't sent some kind of spy drone we don't know about or aren't planning some kind of attack on us here that they think would work against what they _think_ is here," Peeta noted, glancing over at me as he indicated where his armour was standing in one corner of the tent, the suit sealed and waiting for him to return to it. "I've been working with Beetee on a stealth armour that should let me evade most conventional detection systems to try and get a closer look at the mountain, but its weapons are more limited as we had to dedicate more systems to stealth functions; we haven't been that careful so far, so…"

"We haven't been that careful because they don't know where we are or have any reason to know about _us_ , so we haven't been worrying about anything more than our facility being found by a lucky patrol," I explained my reasoning. "If we're going to prepare for the final attack, we need to be sure that these people can work with us, which means training more closely with the Ark residents and the Coalition instead of just practising amongst ourselves."

"Which leads to you being in a position where you are more likely to be observed by our enemies," Anya finished.

"Precisely," I nodded at her. "Peeta, get Beetee to send you that armour, and then you and Clarke can take up aerial watch-shifts for any sign that Mount Weather's forces are aware of us; if Clarke keeps the jets' power low and tries to glide more, she should be able to avoid detection while still keeping an eye on things, and limited firepower should be enough if you can take them by surprise."

"You think so?"

"Steve told me that the Falcon gear was designed for stealth rescue purposes; it wouldn't be much good at that if it was easy for the enemy to detect when it was being used," I noted. "You've got a good knack for combat and you're still going to be training with us when you're on the ground; we might as well diversify and kill two birds with one stone… no pun intended."

"Right," Finnick smiled at me. "Interesting strategy, Girl on Fire; you're really thinking long-term about our available assets."

"Tactical training from Captain America; it's useful."

"What the _Hell_?" a voice said, prompting a groan from Clarke as she turned to look at a young man in dark clothes, storming into our tent with an outraged glare on his face as he stared around our small group. "Octavia's _gone_?"

"Bellamy," Clarke said, stepping forward before I could say anything myself, "Octavia hasn't _gone_ ; she's been… taken to Asgard for…"

"You don't even know, do you?" Bellamy looked indignantly at the newest Avenger after Clarke failed to finish her sentence. "You've signed on with these people and you don't even know what they're doing to her!"

"Thor wouldn't have taken her to Asgard on a whim," I said, wishing suddenly that I knew how to talk to people in a situation like this; Mockingjay could command anything from the other Avengers to armies to follow her orders, but I'd never been in a position where I had to defend my teammates like this to someone who didn't have some idea of who I was. "I don't know what made Thor do that, but I trust him-"

"To keep _us_ off-guard and useless while you swan in and make us all feel oh-so-grateful to the goddamn Avengers for saving our asses after the last team screwed up!" Bellamy spat at me. "You're just setting yourselves up to take over-!"

" _NO_ ," I countered, my tone so cold that I liked to think I would have made anyone in the old Panem short of Snow stop what they were saying, Bellamy only able to stare at me in stunned silence as I walked up to stand directly in front of him. "We are the Avengers, Bellamy Blake; we are here to protect the world and fight the forces that no single hero could stand against, but we are _not_ here to try and rule the world just because we have the power to do it. This team's sole purpose is to protect the weak from anyone who would try to keep them down just because they can-"

"And you think you can tell a man who thinks he's a _god_ what to do-"

"I think that I can trust the last original Avenger to respect the legacy he's part of and the chosen successor of his original commander," I countered firmly; I might sometimes wonder if Steve had made the right choice when he made me the leader of the Avengers, but I would never stop trying to be worthy of that faith. "Thor never questioned Captain America's orders, and Captain America has made it clear that I have his full trust to lead his team; I appreciate that those names may not mean much to you, but they mean a _hell_ of a lot to me."

"Yeah, you respect the man who _failed_ to save the world-"

"When one of his best friends was driven insane because _certain_ people couldn't accept the difference between what someone _can_ do and what they _will_ do," I countered. "If you think you can handle Mount Weather on your own, fine, but don't blame us when they decide that you're so much trouble it's easier to turn to the _Abomination_ than keep on putting up with everything you have to throw at them-"

"We could have-"

"What?" Clarke asked. "Run off and find somewhere else to make a camp? Mount one last desperate stand against the Grounders to protect what we've got left because we'd rather die trying to say we were right than admit we were wrong? Tried to make peace with people who want our blood and bone marrow to let themselves walk on the surface again and think they're more deserving of life than anyone else here? Bellamy, I appreciate that's how you grew up, but this isn't 'them or us' any more; it's us, the Coalition and the Avengers against Mount Weather, and we should just be grateful that we've got any kind of assets after everything we've been through!"

"Yeah, and you're _so_ grateful for everything they gave _you_ , aren't you?" Bellamy spat.

"Excuse me?" Finnick said, looking at the Blake sibling with a particular edge to his expression. "If you're implying something, say it to our faces."

"Come on, you gave her a position on the team and you think that's all we need to see your point of view?" Bellamy asked, indicating Clarke with a harsh sneer. "Dress her up and parade her around in a fancy suit and we'll suddenly forget-?"

"Clarke did something that nobody has done since Mount Weather started its hunts and actually escaped that place after spending months acting as your leader in a hostile environment she could never have imagined experiencing; believe me, she _earned_ her place on this team," I cut in, looking coldly at Bellamy. "We don't hand out Avengers membership, Mr Blake; Clarke earned her place here with everything she did _before_ we asked her to become the Falcon-!"

"And now she's just-"

"I'm on the team," Clarke said firmly, standing up to look firmly at Bellamy. "I've been consulted on every decision that's been made since I joined these people, Bellamy, and I'm satisfied that they want my input; just because I'm not whining when things don't go the way I'd like them doesn't mean I don't wish things were that simple, but I'm satisfied that I've done the best I can-"

"Hey!" Raven's voice cut in, the mechanic hobbling into the building with a firm glare. "I get that you've got a lot going on right now, but we just got a call I think you need to hear."

"Octavia?" Bellamy asked.

"Monty."

" _Monty_?" Clarke said, looking at Raven in shock.

"Monty?" I repeated uncertainly.

"He's one of the people still stuck in Mount Weather," Clarke explained, moving over to look eagerly at Raven. "Where's the call?"

"I diverted it to what used to be the main control room-"

With those words, Clarke hurried out of our makeshift Ark base, leaving me to lead the rest of the team after her as she headed into the main Ark facility. Even with her head start, her unfamiliarity with her new suit slowed her down just enough to allow the rest of us to catch up as she reached the radio, eagerly grabbing it as an unfamiliar voice was heard at the other end.

" _Monty_!" she said, grinning in relief. "You're OK!"

" _Clarke_?" the man who was apparently Monty said at the other end of the connection. "You're OK?"

"Better than OK," Clarke said, grinning back at me. "We have some _very_ interesting new allies to help us deal with everyone in that mountain."

" _Like who_?"

"Like me," I said, stepping forward to take the radio from my new teammate. "You can all me Mockingjay, Monty; I'm the leader of the Avengers."

"… _the Avengers_?" the boy repeated incredulously. " _As in Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, all that_?"

"Actually, Captain America's retired and it's the She-Hulk rather than the Hulk, but you're basically on the right track with the other two," I corrected with a smile. "Without getting bogged down, let's just say for the moment that the two groups you've encountered so far just reflect a relatively small portion of the surviving human population here on Earth; we had a… political crisis a few months back that prompted my own civilisation to recreate the Avengers to deal with the problem, and we've remained together ever since."

" _Seriously_?" the boy said.

"It's true, Monty," Clarke cut in. "I know that it sounds impossible, but there really is another civilisation down here; they just left the grounders alone because they thought this part of the country had been completely destroyed in the nuclear war. Mockingjay has Captain America's old shield, they've managed to rebuild Iron Man's armour, there's a new Black Widow, new heroes called the Mariner and Bloodaxe, and…"

" _And_?"

"And… they've made Anya and I part of the team."

" _Hold on;_ Anya?" Monty repeated. " _As in the grounder who_ -"

"Mistakes were made," Clarke said firmly. "Anya's on the team now, like me; Mockingjay trusts her, and I trust Mockingjay."

" _But how_ -?"

"We can discuss that when we get you out of there," I cut in, stepping forward to take the radio. "I appreciate that you probably can't do this for long, so I have an urgent matter to discuss; do you or anyone else know about a part of Mount Weather that isn't meant to be accessed by the general staff?"

" _Why_?"

"We… have reason to think that there's something in there that Mount Weather are using to create the Reapers," I said, after exchanging awkward glances with Clarke; we didn't want to get anyone worried about the Abomination in case he was safely confined, but we had to have some idea of where he was being kept if we were going to take action. "We're not sure if we can access the records from outside in case it alerts them to our presence, but if you can work out where it is, we can take it from there and make sure we know where to strike first."

" _I'll see what I can find_ ," Monty confirmed grimly. " _Just… don't take too long, OK? Jasper and I are buying some time by offering blood donations, but I'm not sure if that's going to keep these people satisfied for long…_ "

"We'll be there as soon as we can be," I said firmly, before the radio connection cut out.

It might give us an indefinite deadline, but we now had a potential 'in' to speak to our allies inside Mount Weather; the only question now was how best to use that advantage…


	21. A God on the Ark

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

"Excuse me?" Octavia said, after the two young women had taken a moment to process what Thor had just told them. "He… he's my _father_?"

"OK, how the _hell_ is _that_ possible?" Johanna asked. "Last I checked, Octavia's spent her life on the Ark, which isn't exactly somewhere you can just drop into and then _leave_ … and how do you _know_ he's the dad, anyway?"

"I can be sure that Loki was the father because no other Frost Giant would ever be in a position to be on the Ark," Thor said solemnly. "And I can be certain that Loki was in such a position because I was the one who forced him to leave the Ark and return to his prison after he attempted to escape there."

"Yes, and did you actually help the people of the Ark or leave them without a care in the world?" Loki asked.

"I hardly left without a care," Thor countered, a shameful expression on his face. "My reasons… were poor, I acknowledge that now, but-"

"Hey!" Octavia snapped. "I get you two don't like each other, but you've just overturned pretty much my entire life, so how about you two explain how this shit's even possible, because according to the history books, you," she looked to Thor, "took _him_ ," she pointed to Loki. "back to Asgard to face justice for what he'd done on Earth during the Chitauri Invasion?"

"I did," Thor said grimly.

"And as for how it came about," Loki noted, smiling in amusement at Octavia, "I will share that story. As you aware, my brother took me back to Asgard following the Chitauri Invasion. Many things happened over the next few years, a lot of which will go over your heads so I will simply tell what mattered, which is that I was able to escape from this prison. Unfortunately the last plan I enacted did not go as planned. Odin took great offence this time, and with our mother no longer alive to temper his worse traits, he threw me into the darkest hole on Asgard."

"Worse than this?" Johanna quipped, only to see Loki's stare.

"My present accommodations are humane by any standard. The prison that Odin placed me…" Loki actually shuddered at the memory. "That was a Hell far worse than when I was falling between dimensions after my battle with Thor on the Rainbow Bridge."

There was a brief silence at that statement, even Johanna's brash attitude faltering at Loki's grim expression, but the prisoner eventually continued. "Within the first week I was already plotting of a way to escape, but Odin had placed dampening cuffs on me rather than simply relying on the barriers of cell. It took me a century before I could come with a way to siphon and store what magic I could use into objects that I could later break, all so I could have enough magic in the air to draw upon and cast a spell to transport me. I didn't even care where I would end up, just as long as I was no longer in that hellhole."

"And you ended up on the Arc," Octavia realized.

"As I said, I was in such suffering I didn't care where I ended up, so long as I was far away from that prison," Loki said, "However I never expected to see Earth from a distance-"

"Hold on, let me get this straight," Johanna cut in. "You were trying to get away from prison on Asgard, and got yourself stuck on some space station when you _had_ to know that Earth was habitable?"

"And under the control of the individual who had essentially beaten him to a pulp during his first invasion of Earth," Thor noted, looking grimly at Loki. "You did not wish to expose yourself or others to the Maestro, I assume?"

"…Indeed," Loki said grimly, before he continued his story. "It wasn't long before I discovered by a lone man. He was already talking about getting someone, yet I couldn't allow myself to be discovered. So I killed him and took on his identity. I hid in plain sight, trying to regain my strength. Being free was one thing, but I had no intentions of remaining among humans for longer than I needed to..." he paused for a moment, a wistful look came across his face. "And then I met Aurora Blake. I had been working on one of the lower levels, a group of 'workmates' decided to trip me up as if it was funny. I didn't very much care to associate with anyone and they thought me very little of me. I was already plotting ways to hurt them without giving myself away when she came over."

There was a wistful tone in Loki's voice then. "She simply gave me help without want or care, and for the life of me I don't understand how I found myself so taken in by this single human woman that I, former Prince of Asgard, could not even make a proper sentence at that time."

"Quite a feat," Thor acknowledged, a brief smile on his face that was marred by the pain and guilt in his eyes, Octavia looking slightly tearful at this fresh story of her mother while Johanna was torn between her curiosity at the story and the feeling that she was intruding on a private moment.

"After that, I found myself making excuses to have our paths cross without looking deliberate. Eventually I moved in with her and her son, Bellamy. He was always amazed by my 'magic tricks'," Loki chuckled, looking over Octavia. "I had three years with them… with your mother and brother."

"Three years, and then what, you just left?" Octavia asked.

"In a way," Loki said looking directly to his brother, an action Octavia and Johanna picked up on. "He found me."

* * *

 _Loki, beaten and restrained by chains as he was held down by Asgardian guards, their weapons at his throats. He should have known better than to assume Odin would not stop hunting him down. He was only thankful he had not been in his home with Aurora and Bellamy; who knows whether these brutes would have simply killed them to keep his presence secret?_

" _I must admit, I never thought you'd seek refuge among the species you detest most."_

 _His head snapped up at the sound of Thor's voice. He saw him as well as Sif behind him. "When one spends decades in the hellhole that I was placed in by the Allfather, you really don't care where you end up, so long as you are free." He said, keeping as close to the tone of who his brother should think of him. "I assume then Odin ordered you to bring me back there."_

" _Father is dead. I now rule Asgard."_

 _The disbelief could not be hidden from Loki's face. There was a momentary smirk on his brother's face before it faded away, leaving nothing but the grim visage before him. "You will return to imprisonment, but not to the hell that our father consigned you to. Instead you will be returned to your original cell. It has long since been reinforced from when the Dark Elves invaded."_

" _But…_ prison _? After this long?"_

" _No sentence can be too great for your actions against the realms of Asgard and Midgard," Thor coldly informed him. "Your assistance against the Dark Elves earned you the potential for leeway, but you threw it away in your subsequent coup; prison is all that awaits you now."_

"… _Very well," Loki sighed, bowing his head solemnly before looking urgently at Thor. "But before we depart, I have one last request to make of you."_

" _You are in no position to make demands, brother-"_

" _It is not for me," Loki replied, looking out of the observation window to observe the Ark, now floating in the distance. "If that structure had not been exactly where it was, there was a chance I could have died. The spell I cast to escape my torment could have left me in deep space, but at the time, death would have been preferable to remaining in Munkholme. Without ever knowing it, they saved my life. They deserve to be saved_ by _me without their knowledge as well."_

" _What do you mean saved?" Sif asked, speaking for the first time. "What mischief have you done to these poor souls, Loki?"_

" _I've done nothing Sif. As you know, our technology is leaps and bounds ahead of them, and while sorcery is my expertise, I have spent years on the Ark, have worked in maintaining it as part of my cover to blend in and I can tell you with certainty that it is dying. Within two decades without any help, the Ark will simply cease to function and anyone aboard will be dead." Loki looked up at his brother. "So I ask you brother, help them escape this fate. Take them off the mass of metal and send them to a new world."_

"… _take him away," was the cold response from the King as he motioned with hands for the guards to take him away._

 _As he was taken away, Loki could only think about Aurora and Bellamy. He had argued for the people, but in truth, he had been fighting for them. He could not tell Thor about those he cared for, unwilling to risk what would happen if Thor knew there were actual people Loki cared for. He could only hope his brother hadn't become a heartless monster and wouldn't simply leave the people of the Ark to die. Aurora and her son would have a bright future on another world._

 _Even if he never saw them ever again._

* * *

"You asked your brother to relocate the people of the Ark eighteen years ago?" Octavia looked at her father with astonishment.

"I did indeed," Loki nodded, before shifting his gaze to Thor with a pointed stare. "Only, that's not what happened… is it, brother?"

* * *

 _Thor looked out over the Ark from the observation deck, grimly assessing the ugly mess of metal that had been so pitifully stuck together, before he heard footsteps behind him. "Is he secure?"_

" _He is," Sif confirmed. "And he isn't wrong. I had someone conduct their own casual assessment with our equipment without alerting the humans on board. They estimate the Ark will cease to support life within twenty to thirty five years-"_

" _And should that matter to me?" Thor cut in abruptly. "They'll find some way to overcome. Humans are good at surviving." He turned away from the window and walked past Sif. "We've spent long enough in the presence of fools. It's time to go home."_

" _That's it?" Sif asked, her voice showing her shock. "That's all you have to say? These people-"_

" _Humanity brought their fate on themselves," Thor snapped, turning back to glare at Sif. "They all knew the dangers of nuclear war, and yet they permitted themselves to be provoked into decimating their own planet so that their best chance of survival was that… thing."_

" _It was the best they could do-"_

" _After their own decisions crippled their best and brightest to be sacrificed like cattle on an altar so that the stupid and cowardly could live."_

" _You cannot judge the people on this vessel for the actions of the Maestro's slaves," Sif argued. "They are ignorant of everything that has befallen their brethren, and humanity are still entitled to our protection; we have an obligation to help them, especially we have the chance to do so. Jane would..."_

" _DO NOT DARE SPEAK HER NAME!" Thor roared. "How dare you! How dare you use her name in trying to defend these creatures when all you have ever been is envious of the love we had for each other! You dare defend these miserable beings with the human that meant more to me than any other! I will not aid those who have fallen so far; if they are worth saving after what they have done, let them save themselves or be damned forever!"_

 _Moments passed before the king's rage faded enough to realise his own words, but more importantly realised that his right hand was bruised and had blood on it._

 _Looking down, he saw Sif on the ground, looking at him in disbelief, her right eye swollen shut and her skin was broken, allowing for a trail of blood to trickle down her face._

 _"... and you ask yourself how Mjolnir deemed you unworthy," she spat on the floor, disbelief fading to rage. Slowly and painfully she pulled herself off of the floor and began to walk away._

" _Where are you going?" the King of Asgard asked, only for his long-time friend not to respond. "Sif stop! Stop this instance!" Silence. "I am your king! I command you to stop!" Sif's silence infuriated him further. "If you don't stop I will..."_

" _Kill me?"_

 _Thor blinked, the scathing words coming from his trusted friend, who refused to face him, even if she had stopped moving. "Exile me? Imprison me? I dare to speak my mind and you react at me like a petulant child? Not even Loki when he usurped the throne acted as you have these last few moments." There was a long pause, Sif deliberately letting her words sink in. "I let myself turn a blind eye to you for many years after Jane, after Banner because of our friendship and for my own hidden feelings for you, feelings I know now you will never reciprocate. You had only one love of your life, and you lost her. But you have never dealt with the loss, but merely let it, along with your defeat by the Maestro and the loss of Mjolnir, fester upon your soul like a cancer. I thought I could actually bring you back, back to the man I knew. To the man I loved."_

 _Thor stood there speechless, wanting to move to her yet finding himself unable to move. He wanted her to look him in the eyes, to turn around…_

" _But now I see I have but one recourse left for that."_

 _Finally she turned to him, but to Thor's shock, there was no emotion on her face, his old ally staring coldly at him despite the effort needed for her to make her following statement so coldly._

" _You are not my king. I do not recognize a man who would condemn thousands to death as a king I would follow, a king I would serve, or a king I would allow to rule me." Sif said without the slightest bit of emotion and Thor's horror removed her armor from her body, allowing it to fall to the floor, leaving her dressed only in her tunic. She unsheathed her sword, turning it to its double bladed configuration before splitting it into two swords. One she sheathed, while the other she tossed at Thor's feet. "I hereby enter exile on Asgard."_

 _Thor shook his head in disbelief. "Sif, please don't this."_

" _Do not send messages to me, I will burn them. Do not try to send men after me, I will send them back to you broken and beaten. I will speak to no one but you and I will never speak to you unless you hold Mjolnir in your hands again. Until that day comes, goodbye, King of Asgard."_

 _Thor watched, stunned beyond belief as Sif walked away and walked out of his life._

* * *

No one spoke at all. They just looked at Thor, his head bowed low, whether out of shame or simply lost in the memories he had just described, no one could tell.

"Sif hasn't been a part of Asgardian affairs or my life since the day I made that decision," he said finally. "I am not proud of what I did, or how I handled things with her, but..."

Anything else that would have been said was cut short by Octavia striking Thor in the face with her fist. The unprepared king was taken completely off guard by his niece's attack. He thought to chastise her as he got his bearings but stopped when looking at her. Her entire body was trembling with rage, her eyes burned with hate, hate focused entirely on him.

"It's your fault…" she hissed venomously. "Everything terrible that has ever happened to me and my family… is _your fault_."

"OK, that's a bit extreme; he didn't even know you _existed_ -" Johanna began, reaching out to place a hand on Octavia's shoulder only to stare in shock as the hand was suddenly covered in a thin layer of ice.

"You… stay… _out of this_!" Octavia snapped, clenching her fists before she punched Johanna in the stomach, her suddenly ice-covered fists packing enough force to knock the Avenger into the wall. As her fists began to sprout more jagged ice fragments, Octavia practically stalked up to the fallen Avenger, raising her hands for another blow before Thor grabbed her arm.

"Octavia! You are not thinking clearly!" Thor shouted, hoping to reasoning with her. "I understand that life on the Ark must be harsh compared to normal people…"

"You understand nothing!" Octavia roared back, the temperature of the room dropping sharply. "I lived underneath the floor of my mother and brother's quarters for _sixteen years_ because the Ark's laws only allowed one child per family! My mother should have aborted me in the womb but she loved me enough to have me!"

"My family's love for me was the only bright spot I had in that hell under the floor. And as I got older I learned the sacrifices they did in order to keep me alive. How my mother would whore herself out to members of the Guard to learn when they would be doing surprise inspections, so that I could hide to be safe. How Bellamy was training himself so he could be a member of the Guard himself one day to help me. And I actually thought that we could be together forever…" her eyes narrowed at Thor. "Until the day they found out. Would you like to know what they did when they found out about me, 'Uncle'? They threw me into jail… but not before I watched them space my mother out an airlock."

"No…" Thor said, his tone low as he stared at the girl, pain clear in his eyes as he stared at his 'niece'. As Johanna watched from the side, a quick glance at Loki showed the prisoner's keen attention to Octavia's story shift from horror to grief before settling on utter rage. Johanna raised Jarnbjorn defensively when Loki slammed against the prison barrier, roaring in rage as he beat his fists on the barrier. The shields were more than strong enough to hold Loki's weakened magic, but the 'explosion' caught Thor's attention long enough for Octavia to headbutt him while he was distracted, forcing her to release his grip on her.

"My first week in lock up, the Guard abused me day in and day out," Octavia glared indignantly at the ruler of Asgard, ice spreading further over her arms. "They hated me because I existed, going on about how they'd actually suffered because I was born and used up resources that could have gone to themselves, to their loved ones, instead of to an abomination like me! It got so bad I nearly died and that's when they got smarter about what they did cause they couldn't let me die in their care, 'non-exister' or not!"

"Octavia… I'm sorry…" Thor began, only for Octavia to violently shake her head.

"No, you're only sorry _now_!" she yelled, following her comment up by punching him in the face with her ice covered hands. The force behind them coupled with Thor's feelings allowed her to knock him off his feet and flat on his back. "Because apparently we're related! But you, you're just like them! Like all those other people in power!"

She pressed her advantage, getting on top of him, and Thor could see the loathing in her eyes. "You don't care about the rest of us! You only care about yourself!" She punched him in the face. "Everything is your fault!" Another punch. "It's your fault!" Another. "It has to be your fault!"

She continued to unleash her pain and rage upon her 'uncle', but Johanna could easily see that Thor wasn't even trying to defend himself, simply accepting her punches, bruises emerging on his face even as the force behind the subsequent blows began to fade away, rage and anger slowly shifting into grief.

"Damn you! It has to be your fault! It has to be!" Octavia cried out. "I _don't want to be the reason she's dead_ -!"

"No."

Octavia didn't say anything, but as she looked up at Johanna, the other young woman now back on her feet, it was at least clear that she'd heard the new Avenger's words.

"Your mother may have died because you existed, but that doesn't make it your _fault_ ," Johanna clarified, laying her axe down as she sat in front of the younger girl. "It's not like you had any say in being born or not."

"You don't-!"

"Know what you've been through?" Johanna finished. "Maybe I haven't been where you are, but I _can_ say for a fact that my parents were all killed because I told the gits in charge where they could get off for trying to tell me to prostitute myself to go along with the president's sick little power games."

Johanna took only slight satisfaction that she had both Octavia and Loki looking at her in shock after that comment.

"Somebody seriously wanted you to be a _prostitute_?" Octavia asked, the ice falling from her arms as rage shifted to confusion. "I mean, you told me… I guess I just…"

"Thought I was trying to shock you into calming down?" Johanna finished with an understanding nod, her expression solemn even as the pain in her eyes made it clear that this topic affected her deeply. "Believe me, I wish I was. 'Prostitute' might not be the right term as I wasn't exactly going to get paid for it myself, but… long story short, I was a minor celebrity back home, and the president of my country would get a lot of favours if he let the right people have some 'private time' with me."

"Banner?" Loki asked, looking curiously at Johanna. "He sold others for his own benefit?"

"I knew him as Snow, but we're talking about the same guy," Johanna nodded at the prisoner before looking back at Octavia, who was now standing in a small pool of what had once been her ice 'armour'. "Anyway, I told the bastard no, and he killed my family to make a point to anyone who might think to defy him later on; did the same thing to an old mentor of my team's leader, actually."

"Mockingjay?" Thor asked in surprise. "Captain Rogers was not-"

"It wasn't Rogers, Thor; it was her mentor from the Games after he won his own contest with a neat little trick nobody saw coming," Johanna clarified, waiting for Thor to nod in understanding before she continued. "The point is, your mom might have been killed because you existed, but she didn't die because you chose to do something and she ended up paying the price for it; you're not responsible for what someone else does, even if anyone wants you to think otherwise."

"But… but he left me…" Octavia protested, weakly indicating Thor as the Asgardian king stared sadly at her.

"He left the remnants of a civilisation that had let him down by killing off the woman he loved and driving one of his best friends insane," Johanna corrected, giving Thor a brief glare before she focused her attention back on Octavia. "Not saying he was perfect, and I agree that it was a bad call, but I like to think he'd have done something if he knew you existed, which is more than your Ark Council would've done if they'd found out about you before your mother pushed you out."

Octavia said nothing, the woman clearly physically and emotionally spent, the temperature of the wider room returning to normal as she slumped against the wall, staring listlessly at her father's prisoner.

 _Just what is this girl capable of_? The self-titled Bloodaxe wondered, staring at this young girl who contained so much cold potential. _And how much harm could she cause if she doesn't control it_?

"Lady Johanna, I-" Thor began.

"Don't," Johanna held up her artificial arm with a warning glare. "I get that you were in a shitty place after Bruce snapped and tore through you and the old guard, and I get that you probably thought we weren't worth saving back when you came to the Ark, but… well, thinking that you were just ignoring Earth and learning that you actually saw us and decided not to do anything aren't the same thing."

"I acknowledge my shortcomings and failures in this manner," Thor said solemnly. "I assure you, you cannot loathe me for my inaction more than I do myself."

"I get that," Johanna said, nodding at him before she let out a slight chuckle as she checked her axe. "Actually, I'm kinda surprised I'm taking this so well; think I'd have started swinging this thing at you along with Octavia if I'd found out about this a few months ago."

"Being an Avenger has a significant influence on our number in many ways," Thor noted with a grim smile. "I recall that Lady Romanov in particular became warmer as time went on…"

"The Black Widow was a people person?" Johanna smiled, ignoring the curious glance from Octavia as the young girl looked up. "She seemed a bit… I mean, I liked her, but-"

"It was easier for her later on," Thor explained. "You encountered her early in our career; she became far more personally invested as we spent more time together…"

His voice trailed off as he looked upwards, the suddenly awkward expression on his face helping Johanna realise what he was thinking about.

"It was her relationship with Bruce, wasn't it?"

"The closeness they shared was… a contribution to what befell him in the end… but what they became should not mar what came before," the Asgardian king said solemnly. "Whatever Bruce was when you faced him, he was once a good man; you cannot forget that."

"I don't," Johanna said, once again surprised to find that she meant it.

She had accepted the idea that Bruce Banner wasn't going to become Snow in his timeline now that he knew what he might become in one future, but the fact that she could be this comfortable thinking about the Bruce Banner from the history she knew as a separate person from the man he'd become was a surprise to herself.

Right now, however, the biggest concern facing her was Octavia; the girl had just experienced a massive upheaval of her entire life, and obviously needed more than a few moments to come to terms with everything that had just been dumped on her so abruptly.

"Please help her outside, I will join you shortly so I can escort you to quarters for your stay here," Thor said, turning back to his brother. "Loki and I have… there are things that need to be said between us that I would rather remained between us."

"Check," Johanna said, crouching down to help Octavia up, the girl staring blankly ahead of herself with tears still gleaming in the corner of her eyes as they left the prison.

"Whatever apologies or platitudes you think to say, save them brother," Loki said coldly, as Thor turned back to look at him. "I asked you to save them. My daughter's suffering is all because of your choices."

"I know how much I have failed her, Loki-"

"No I don't believe you do. Otherwise you would be as concerned about my daughter's life as I am." Noting that Thor was simply looking at him in confusion, Loki continued his explanation. "Octavia is a hybrid child of human and frost giant, but due to the magic that conceals my Jotun nature, her humanity became the dominant of the two."

"Until she came into contact with Mjolnir," Thor realized. "Back on Earth, she had no powers, no strength other than that of a normal human…"

"And now her two sides are at war with each other," Loki finished for him, his tone grim and foreboding. "You've already seen the results of this internal struggle; she has gained inhuman strength and the ability to manipulate ice, but she isn't actively controlling it. It's not something she can consciously will. In time, her body will be wracked with unbearable pain as her two natures fight. She could literally die from rejection."

"And how do we stop this?" Thor asked. "If there is a way to reverse-"

Loki shook his head. "You cannot reverse this. Her only chance is to do as I did when I learned the truth about my own origins. She has to hold it."

Thor looked at Loki in disbelief. "You can't mean that."

"It is her only chance to live."

"And if it even works, she will no longer be mortal," Thor argued. "Everyone she knows and cares about, Octavia will outlive them all. She will outlive her own brother, Loki."

"But she will be alive! And in the end, that is all that matters!" Loki shouted, hands pressed against the glass of his prison as he stared at Thor with a passion and a fire in his eyes the King of Asgard had not seen in such a long time. "I have failed in so many ways, brother. Don't let me fail in the only way that I can be a father to my daughter behind this blasted cage wall!" He narrowed his eyes at Thor. "Take Octavia to the Casket. It is her only chance to survive."


	22. Conversations on Tech-Related Matters

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: A break from my usual narrative style of alternating between Katniss' POV and a third-person chapter, but since the Avengers are just training at this point, I thought it was important to show how a certain '100' character is reacting to events back on Earth, so I hope you like the results

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

 _What does it say about me that I hate it when things are going well?_

Raven recognised that she was exaggerating her issues, but it felt like the simplest way to consider her feelings on the events of the last few days. Ever since that last attack on the dropship by the Grounders, Raven had been forcing herself to keep going as much as possible to try and keep the rest of the 100 alive, even if her back injury had made that difficult, but now that the Avengers had arrived on the scene, she found herself resenting their presence more than she appreciated it.

It wasn't that she didn't appreciate that the former residents of the Ark would be in trouble if they tried to go after Mount Weather on their own- even with the grounders to make up the numbers, they'd have trouble coping with the mountain's defences on several levels- but the fact that she knew they needed help on this one just left her feeling even more useless.

She didn't like to think of herself as conceited, but she'd been such a major part of events on the ground since she'd arrived here in that escape capsule that it felt like she'd been demoted back to some dumb kid ever since Mockingjay flew in with Clarke and the rest. Now Finn was dead, Clarke was flying around as part of a genuine team of freaking _superheroes_ , Octavia was off in some other dimension with a man who was king of that place and a woman with an artificial arm, and Raven was still trying to work out how she could walk with this goddamn leg…

OK, so she'd picked up that transmission from Monty back in the mountain, but that was just accessing the Ark's old radios and listening out; anyone with any kind of technical ability could have done that. It was like she'd taken several steps back in ability after that idiot shot her; she wasn't getting anything done and she didn't even have a clear idea what she could do to sort that out.

 _Shit_ , she thought, as she slumped down against the nearest suitably-sized box in the camp. _Everything's building up to some big showdown, and I'm having trouble just staying on my feet while the tech goes beyond anything I ever worked with_ …

"Problem?" someone asked. Looking up, Raven saw the gold-and-red figure of Iron Man walking up towards her, his helmet raised to reveal a surprisingly young face with fair hair.

"Just… stuff, y'know?" Raven shrugged.

"Been there," Iron Man smiled, reaching up to remove the helmet completely as he leaned against the wall to smile at her. "By the way, I'm not sure we've been properly introduced; Peeta Mellark."

"Raven Reyes," Raven replied, looking at him with a brief smile; she still might have some issues about Finnick's death, but even the darkest part of her recognised that Iron Man in particular hadn't had any clear role in that decision. "Thought you hero types were meant to have secret identities?"

"We're alternating on that a bit, considering that part of our reputation depends on what we did as people _before_ we started wearing these suits, but since you're so close to Clarke already there's not much point in keeping things from you even if we did believe in that policy," Peeta replied, before looking at her in a quizzical manner. "So, what's wrong?"

"Wrong?"

"You're sitting out here while half your friends are in Mount Weather and the other half are training to help us get them out," Peeta said, holding up a defensive hand as Raven glared at him. "I'm not saying that you don't have reasons for staying out of it right now, considering that you've got that leg to deal with, but I've heard enough to know that your mind's your best asset-"

"Compared to what you're packing?"

"Excuse me?" Peeta looked at Raven in confusion.

"God, I _get_ that I'm useless; you don't have to rub it in-"

"Look, if this is about your injury, I already said that your mind's your best asset, and once we've dealt with Mount Weather I'm sure we can get one of our doctors back in the old Capitol to take a look at your back-"

"The back I can work with; it's the _tech_ I have a problem with!"

Peeta repeated in confusion."Tech?"

"I mean, look at what you're _wearing_!" Raven yelled, indicating the red and gold armour the young Avenger was wearing. "That thing might as well be bolts and iron held together by magic as far as I'm concerned, but you can fly around wherever you want and go head-to-head with a freakin' _god_ as long as you're wearing it!"

"It's not like I can actually _beat_ Thor in this thing-"

"But you can still _fight_ him!" Raven protested. "I'm meant to be some genius mechanic, and now I don't have a clue how that stupid suit of yours works-!"

"Hey, do you think _I_ know what I'm doing with this thing?" Peeta cut in with a broad smile.

"You… you don't?" Raven asked, looking at the armoured Avenger in confusion. "But… I heard you talking about creating some stealth suit-"

"I had the original idea and offer some input in how it'll look once it's ready; I can't actually create one myself," Peeta smiled, tapping his armoured chest nonchalantly. "Our tech guys stuck this armour together from surviving components from Tony Stark's original suits; I've been working with some of the best people we've got to learn how this works ever since we killed the Maestro and I'm still barely qualified on my own to do more than reattach the plates when this thing takes a serious beating, never mind actually making any additions to it! I only really got on this team in the first place because we needed someone who could talk to the crowd if we needed to win people over; if I didn't have the armour, everyone else on the team would _crush_ me in a fight!"

"And… that doesn't bother you?" Raven asked, looking at him in surprise.

"Not really," Peeta smiled at her. "I don't think of it as me being the weak link in the chain; I think of it as me being the one who has the chance to grow alongside the rest of them."

"Eh?"

"Just because I couldn't fight when I joined the team doesn't mean I can't learn how to do it now," Peeta explained. "I may not be the best in any field, but I'm working with three people who proved themselves against trained warriors before they had something to stand for, and I'm picking up more than a few new skills from everyone working on the armour with me."

"Right…" Raven said, nodding uncertainly as she took in Peeta's words.

"And anyway," Peeta smiled at her, "from what I've heard about you, you've got something that can't exactly be taught."

"What?"

"A natural knack for technology," Peeta smiled. "I mean, from what I've heard from Clarke, you didn't exactly have a lot of spare parts to work with stuck on that station up there, and yet you've not only managed to make it all the way down here in something that nobody believed could work, but you followed it up by making explosives and turning the original ship into a weapon when you couldn't have exactly had time to practise doing _any_ of that up in space."

"It's not like it worked perfectly-"

"Focus on the fact that any of the things you tried down here worked at _all_ ; if you're going to start judging yourself because you're not perfect, then you're never going to get anywhere," Peeta said firmly. "You're not stupid because you don't know how to do anything with our technology; you're ignorant because you haven't had the chance to work with any of it yet. If you want to improve, talk with Kat- Mockingjay when you have a moment; we could always use more technical support with these things."

"Tech support?"

"We've only got a couple of experts and a few assistants working on this stuff at the moment," Peeta smiled at her as he indicated his armour. "Add in all the equipment we have to keep in order back at the base, based on what I've seen since I got here and Clarke joined our sessions, with the right training, you can _definitely_ go on to become an expert in that stuff once you've been instructed in what you're working with."

"I'll… I'll remember that," Raven said, nodding at Peeta with a growing smile. "Thanks."

"No problem," Peeta smiled at her, before looking back at her leg with a slight smile. "And hey, at least you've still _got_ your leg."

"What do-?" Raven began, before his eyes flicked down to his left and the pieces fell into place. " _You_?"

"It was done before I got the armour, so it's a fairly simple prosthetic compared to Bloodaxe's arm, but it still hurt at the time…" Peeta began, before he gave Raven a new smile. "The point is, if I can get a new leg, they can certainly do something when your only problem is a damaged connection."

It was an awkward way of putting it, but despite how morbid the topic was, Raven could appreciate the sentiment behind it.

For the first time since Clarke flew into the camp, she felt like she could think about how she might be able to help everyone by getting better, rather than brooding over how she'd screwed up so far and was feeling like such a goddamn idiot…


	23. Campaign Plans

Disclaimer: _Avengers_ , _Hunger Games_ , and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

AN: I was planning to jump back to Asgard at this point, but it occurred to me that another small-but-significant detail should be dealt with at this stage, and it gave Katniss a chance to talk with Clarke and Lexa about their upcoming plans; hope you like it

AN 2: For the record, now that the fourth season of 'The 100' has concluded, I feel that I should clarify that the events of that season will never happen in this series, as far as the whole 'nuclear reactor meltdown' storyline goes. Snow/the Maestro might have been an arrogant asshole, but he wasn't crazy enough to want humanity to be completely destroyed by that kind of nuclear fallout- even if that was mainly because he wanted to have people to rule over- so he made it a priority to keep the plants in good condition and shut them down before they could become dangerous

Falling Hope, Rising Threat

Walking to the Commander's tent with Clarke, I forced myself not to worry about the increasingly complicated variables of this situation.

Facing the Maestro might have been a challenge, but at least once Snow had transformed all our old problems were reduced to something I could hit; so far we just kept finding more complications and reasons to put off trying to take the fight to the mountain directly. Viewed from outside, my actions might have seemed cowardly, but I knew that every decision I'd made so far in the campaign against Mount Weather had been because I wanted to be sure I knew what we were up against. Fighting Snow had been simple because we'd known going in that anyone in that area would be guilty, but I wasn't going to agree to any kind of attack on Mount Weather when Clarke's report confirmed that there were innocent people in there rather than it being a pure military target. Training with Clarke and Anya to incorporate the Falcon and She-Hulk into our battle strategies was going well, and I was as confident as I could ever be that we could handle the Abomination if the time came for us to fight him, but getting into Mount Weather without killing innocent people just by opening the door was the biggest issue facing us right now.

When Clarke had suggested we send someone in to infiltrate the guards on the mountain's staff, I wasn't comfortable with the choice of spy, but I had to agree with the reasoning behind her decision. I was still working with Clarke and Anya to refine the idea of the three of us and Thor staging our capture at some later date so that we could initiate a break-out from inside the compound, Johanna would stand out too much with or without her artificial arm even if she'd been here to nominate for that kind of assignment, Peeta wasn't capable enough in a fight without his armour for me to feel comfortable sending him into the mountain, I couldn't spare Finnick as he was the most qualified pilot among us and we'd need the hovercraft to get away after the assault was over, and I certainly wasn't going to send Prim in on her own to deal with something this dangerous. There was nobody else in the support staff back at the Avengers compound that I would trust with something this important, I couldn't call in anyone else from Panem, none of our potential allies in the Coalition would be able to understand what we wanted them to do once they got inside the mountain, the adults in the Ark couldn't be guaranteed to go along with any plan we came up with, and most of the remaining delinquents were too impulsive to be fully trusted with something this important.

It was a risky plan, but however I looked at it, even if he wasn't a particular fan of the Avengers after Thor and Johanna had 'abducted' Octavia, Bellamy Blake was the best choice we had to get into that mountain without anyone realising what he was too soon. He still seemed to glare at myself and any other Avengers when he saw them, evidently still angry about us for letting Thor and Johanna taking Octavia away, but Clarke was hopeful that giving him a mission with a clear purpose would quash his concerns that we were trying to covertly take control of Camp Jaha as part of some kind of long-term agenda. Clarke recognised that Bellamy had anger issues, but he was also the only person from her people who clearly understood the scope of the situation facing us and had the necessary experience of life on the ground; everyone else who'd come down in the dropship was more used to following orders than taking the initiative.

The idea of sending Lincoln in to act as a Reaper to take Bellamy into the mountain was another part of the plan I wasn't entirely comfortable about, but Finnick had volunteered to have a couple of meetings with Lincoln to assess his mental condition. The former District Four resident might not be a qualified 'psychiatrist' (I was fairly sure that was the term used in the pre-Panem days), but his insight into people made him the best qualified of the Avengers to conduct that kind of analysis. Clarke had wanted to discuss the plan with her mother, but once I'd agreed with her reasoning, I'd decided that it would be best to get the Commander's 'permission' first, since the Coalition was far larger than the Ark. Panem and the Capitol were too far away to be directly involved in these events, so I saw no point in talking with them about it, but something this risky would require permission from the local authorities if we wanted to make it clear that the Avengers weren't here to just take over.

" _Heda_ ," Clarke said, leading me in nodding politely at the commander as we walked into the tent, the young woman sitting calmly in her throne as another man with shaven sideburns and a thick beard stood beside her, in a manner that put me in mind of a bodyguard.

"Falcon and Mockingjay?" the Commander said, looking curiously at us. "Is that the appropriate term?"

"When we're discussing Avengers business, it's probably easiest to call us that," I nodded at her. "How are things going at your end?"

"My… end?"

"Your part in our plan to attack Mount Weather," I clarified. "How's that coming along?"

"We progress," Lexa said solemnly. "While the clans gather, my best scouts are observing the mountain to confirm how many people travel to and from it on a regular basis, and we have identified the primary routes in and out."

"But you can't actually _use_ those routes," Clarke finished.

"Not without being caught," Lexa acknowledged.

"Which is where we come in," I explained. "We want to send Bellamy in as a spy."

"Bellamy?" Lexa repeated, before her gaze shifted to Clarke. "He is your… other leader?"

"He was," Clarke nodded. "I get that you don't have much reason to trust him, but I've spoken with Mockingjay and the other Avengers and we're all agreed that he's our best chance. I don't mean any offence, but to be blunt, none of your people would even understand what to do once they got inside the mountain even if we could give them suitable disguises, and there's nobody else on our side we can trust to stick to our plan rather than try and do things their way who isn't needed out here."

"You have that little faith in your people?" the man standing beside the Commander asked.

"Everyone we have faith in who would be capable of something like this has another role in the plan," I clarified. "We told you that the Avengers are an elite unit- we don't just let _anyone_ onto the team- but that means we only have so many people we can spare for something like this."

"Your plan is flawed."

"How?" I asked the man firmly.

"There is too much danger in-"

"What?" I cut him off with a warning hand. "Trying to stop Mount Weather? In case you hadn't noticed, that whole facility is heavily protected and has some very advanced weapons; this was never going to be safe!"

"We have existed in balance-"

"You've been letting them _rule_ you!"

When the man stormed forward while drawing a knife from his belt, I briefly wondered if I'd crossed a line, but just as the thought crossed my mind, I had already grabbed the shield from my back and used it to knock the knife out of his hand, following the move by holding my shield's edge against his throat.

" _Don't_ ," Clarke said, already having drawn a gun from her harness to point it at the man, a show of support that I appreciated despite the little time we'd spent together so far. "You try to touch Mockingjay again, and you _will_ lose that hand."

"You dared imply that I am not loyal-"

"I didn't mean it _that_ way," I corrected the man immediately. "What I _meant_ is that right now Mount Weather are basically the ones in charge of this situation because they have the power and you're letting them set the rules of your interaction with them as they abduct your people for their own ends."

"She… is correct," the Commander said grimly, looking solemnly at the other soldier. "We have never taken their orders, but the Mountain Men have always… set the terms of our encounters with them; we react, but nothing more."

"But it doesn't have to be that way now," Clarke said firmly. "We can help you turn the tables against them, but you have to trust that we _can_ help you."

"And what promise do we have that you will not use this opportunity to put yourself in their place?" the guard said, glaring between Clarke and I. "This alliance is dangerous-"

"It's _all_ dangerous," I countered firmly, refusing to push the shield any further; I was becoming frustrated with this man's attitude, but I wasn't going to start killing people just because they annoyed me. "The world is never going to be perfectly safe, but sometimes you have to have faith that people are here to help you because it's the right thing to do. If you don't want our help, we'll leave, but right now, your options are either let us help you or stand by and let the mountain continue to take people from your clans to sustain themselves, which means that, best-case-scenario, nothing is going to change for your people."

"Best… what?" the guard asked, hostile gaze shifting to confusion as he looked at us.

"The best possible outcome of the situation we're in," I clarified, deciding to step back from the man when I noticed that he had put his knife back into his belt. "I understand that this is… well, I only became an Avenger a year ago and I still wonder at some of the things I've seen, so I can't imagine what it's like for you to have us all taking control of the situation like this."

"We do not fear you-"

"And we don't _want_ you to fear us," Clarke said, looking reassuringly at him for a moment before she turned her attention to the Commander. "As… Mockingjay… has told you, the point of the Avengers is to fight the threats that no normal forces could withstand. We're helping you against Mount Weather because they have access to advanced weapons and an old adversary of the original Avengers that we can't allow out to threaten anyone else, but we also want _you_ to be safe. If all we wanted was the destruction of the Mountain, from everything Clarke's told us, we could send Thor in to smash the doors and we'd have the job done, but we're trying to take it down and keep as many people safe as we can."

The Commander looked thoughtfully at us for a few moments, her guard staring inscrutably at us from the side, before she nodded.

"You say that your plan requires you to send in a spy," she said at last. "What would his purpose be?"

"Based on Monty's information, we've provisionally identified the area where they're keeping the Abomination, but we need hands-on information if we're going to work out what we can do about him before they decide to let him out, and we also need to know where the mountain's key rooms actually are," I explained. "Bellamy's our best candidate to get in there without drawing too much attention to himself, and we're talking with Lincoln about the possibility of having him… pose as a Reaper to help Bellamy get in."

"For what purpose?"

"So that Bellamy will just look like another prisoner," Clarke explained. "Once they're through the gate, Lincoln can create a distraction so that Bellamy can get into the mountain, find a disguise, and then work out the best plan of attack from inside; he'll have a radio so that we can talk him through anything he doesn't understand immediately, and nobody in there will know he's out here."

"Is that safe?"

"As safe as anything," Clarke answered. She had spoken with us about the risk of Lincoln being essentially 'addicted' to the blood samples that Mount Weather used to create the Reapers, but had also expressed faith that he had the necessary personal strength to overcome any residual addiction. I still wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea, but we all knew that there was no better candidate than Lincoln to pass himself off as a Reaper when we didn't know how closely Mount Weather paid attention to their numbers. "No plan's perfect, obviously, but we're working on every loophole we can think of, and anything's better than just sitting here until someone inside that mountain gets jumpy and decides to let the Abomination out before we're ready.

"I know you haven't really seen how dangerous Anya can be in her current state," I said, taking up the story myself, "but I've seen what something like the Abomination can do in a fight, and even if I think we have a good chance of stopping him in a direct confrontation, I don't want to give him the opportunity to get out if there's anything we can do to keep him contained."

"You would fight the mountain when they control something that dangerous?"

"I'm hoping they're not crazy enough to let something that dangerous out of the box to deal with our forces when they don't know that you have the Avengers on call now," I informed the man grimly; the more I spoke with him, the more I was reminded of some of the people at District Thirteen who had opposed my plans with the Avengers just because they didn't see why I was doing things that way. "That's why we need to send someone in to confirm where the Abomination is before we mount our attack; if there's any way to keep him wherever they've trapped him, we need a man on the inside to find it."

"And then?"

"Then," Clarke smiled, "we confirm where everything important is inside that mountain, send in our primary strike team to take down the mountain's defences from the inside, and follow it up by having your armies and ours mount another assault from the outside."

"And that will end the Mountain?" the Commander asked.

"Allowing for factors such as whatever other external defences they have to send against us and however many men are available to attack us," Clarke added. "There are more details to refine before we're ready to attack, but we _will_ be ready for them."

It was unlikely to be that simple, but at the same time I knew that there was nothing more we could do about this situation. The mountain might not be as dangerous or individually powerful a threat as the Maestro had been, but with the weapons they had in there, with or without the Abomination, we had to take the mountain out before they decided to turn their firepower against the rest of the country. As I grew in my role as the leader of the Avengers, I had become more determined to judge people by their actions rather than their pasts, but after everything Mount Weather had done to those they considered inferior just because they lived a primitive lifestyle, I wasn't comfortable letting them reach a point where they would be able to spread beyond that mountain.

Whatever the risk of unleashing the Abomination, we had to stop the mountain now…

"For what it's worth," I put in, feeling the need to reassure the Commander of something I could guarantee, "Anya's integrated well into our team, but she's made it clear that if it comes down to a choice between obeying me or obeying you in any big decisions… she'll obey you."

The Commander didn't reply to me verbally, but the slight nod and smile she gave me was enough to show that she'd understood why I'd told her that much.

The odds against us were going to be a challenge, but we seemed to be forming a good balance between our team and the Coalition, and anything I could to assure the Commander and others of our good intentions had to help that goal. Anya was proving to be a good addition to the team, but I didn't want her to feel like she was in a position where she felt that she would have to choose between us and her people, so the best way to do that was to make sure she understood I would never put her in that position on purpose.

So long as the Commander and I never had any major disagreements about what either of our sides had to do in a crisis, we should be all right, but I liked to think that Anya was coming to respect me as a leader in my own right despite her greater physical power compared to the rest of the team…


End file.
